


Phineas Gage

by boombangbing



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aphasia, Brain Damage, Chronic Pain, Emotional Infidelity, F/M, Gun Violence, Medical Procedures, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-02-03 21:09:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 134,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1757083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boombangbing/pseuds/boombangbing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While working in the lab in the early hours of morning, Bruce and Jane are both shot by unknown assailants, leaving Jane permanently scarred and Bruce in a coma. But that's only the beginning of their troubles. (Loosely based on the current storyline in the Hulk comics.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was 'inspired' on Mark Waid's current run in the _Hulk_ comics, wherein [Bruce is shot in the head and suffers severe brain damage](http://retcon-punch.com/2014/04/21/hulk-1/) (spoilers for issue one). It is... not well-handled, but it made me want to explore it in fic. As such, there's going to be some **reasonably detailed descriptions of violence and unpleasant medical procedures**. They're not especially graphic, but they're there. Each chapter will probably be about the length of the first one, and the fic should total five/six chapters.

The labs at Stark Tower are never closed. Granted, at four am most people have gone home, and HR is pretty serious about employee well-being, but as residents, Jane and Bruce are in a sort of grey area. Which means that it's going to be light out soon and they're still working.

After SHIELD self-destructed, there weren't many places for Jane to go; she was persona non grata in academic circles, had the British government breathing down her neck, and had reporters at her door every morning, so when Tony invited her and Thor to live and work in the tower, she jumped on it. Not least because Bruce freaking Banner was heading up the newly created Physics department. Opportunities like that literally never come up.

“Do you want to go get... breakfast after this?” Bruce asks, looking up from his computer and dislodging his glasses as he rubs at his face.

She leans back in her chair and stretches her arms over head. “Sure,” she says, and groans as she arches her back. 

“Great,” Bruce says softly.

“Dr Banner!” JARVIS squawks. Jane starts and sits forward in her seat. “You musss...” His voice slurs to a stop.

Jane looks at Bruce. “What was that?”

“JARVIS!” Bruce calls, but there's no answer. He gets up and looks around. “Jane, I think we need to go...”

She nods and stands up. Her phone is sitting on her desk, so she grabs it and thumbs it on. No reception. There's always reception in Stark Tower.

“Bruce, I haven't got any reception...”

He pulls his phone out of his pocket and looks at it. “Me neither. Come on,” he says, and reaches over to take hold of her wrist. They get a few steps towards the door when a shadow looms behind it. Bruce's hand tightens around her wrist. “Go hide in the closet,” he says, releasing her.

“What?”

He jerks his head towards the storage closet. “Hide in there,” he says in a low voice.

She swallows and nods to herself. It's not like this wasn't gone over when she first started working here – the 'disaster preparedness training', which was really more 'Hulk preparedness training'. The storage closet is reinforced against Hulk, so she should be okay in there, but Bruce... “Okay.”

She takes a couple of steps towards the closet, but movement from outside the window distracts her.

“Bru--” she manages before a circle of glass caves in and a masked man swings in on a cable. There's a crash from the door as well, and if she was Sif and Bruce was Thor – hell, if she was Pepper and he was Tony – they wouldn't let their assailants get the jump on them. But they're just two tired, out of shape nerds, so they do. 

One of them yanks her arms behind her back and presses a gun to her spine and the other gets hold of Bruce and pushes a gun against his head.

“I suggest you stay calm, Dr Banner,” he says, nodding to the man holding Jane. “Because my friend has an itchy trigger finger and I don't like your chances at saving her before he pulls the trigger. 

The other man jabs the gun harder into her back to punctuate the point and she jerks forward, setting her jaw.

“Okay, okay,” Bruce says, “I'm calm. You want me, right? Just let her go.”

“I'm not letting them ta--” she starts, but is cut off by another jab to the back.

“Mm, not quite yet,” the man says, and kicks at the backs of Bruce's knees. He goes with it, going down hard. “Keep your hands behind your back.”

“I'm doing it,” Bruce says, “I'm not resisting. Just leave her alone.”

The man tips his head to one side. “I dunno, boss might want her. I hear she's smart.”

“Pretty too,” her assailant says and presses closer to her. Bruce's gaze hardens and she tries to cringe away.

The man nods thoughtfully. “Well, we can't leave her behind. We'll figure it out once we've cleared out of here.”

“What are you--” Jane says.

She's never heard a gun go off before. She'd always thought it would sound like a car back firing, like sharp, startling _crack_ , but it doesn't; it sucks the breath out of her lungs and her vision whites out, and when it clears she sees Bruce laid out on the floor, blood pouring from his...

Her breath comes back like it's being pumped into her, jerking her whole body as she tries to keep up. She can hear the two of them talking in a muffled sort of way. The grip on her arms loosens and she starts struggling without really thinking about it. She manages to get one arm free and elbows him in chest, then grabs the first thing her hand comes into contact with: a stapler. She clocks the guy in the head with it, then manages to pull it open and staple him in the cheek.

He shrieks and lets go of her altogether and she still isn't sure what she's doing. Bruce is face down but he's... he's the Hulk, he's got to be okay...

Another crack fills the air and her legs go out from under her. The pain is... indescribable. She blacks out for a second but comes to in time to hear their discussion about her attacker's stapled face. She thinks... they shot her in the leg, possibly the hip. They didn't catch the femoral artery or she'd be dead already.

She goes cold; it's even harder to hear their voices now. Shock.

Bruce is nearby, one of his hands stretched out towards her. If she can move her arm, she can touch it. She lies there for who knows how long, willing her arm to move, and eventually it does, sliding across the floor.

She manages to touch his hand and it's as cold as hers. She trails her fingers down to his wrist and presses her fingers to it. She's not sure how long she waits, but eventually there's a single thump of his pulse against her fingertips. She slides her hand back up and presses her palm to his. His fingers remain slack.

“Aw, look at that,” one of the guys says. Her hearing's filtering back in. In the background she can make a _thwip thwip thwip_ sound. “They're holding hands.”

“Uh huh. Load 'em up, he's not going to last much longer.”

There's a lull and she can hear them walking around the lab. A pair of black boots come into her view. They're unlaced, mud caked around the bottom, the sole is peeling away from the front of one of them. She wonders if she should try to grab hold of his leg, but she knows she used up the last of her energy reaching out to Bruce.

Then, all of a sudden – she guesses she blacked out again – there are two more gunshots and the man's body join his feet on the floor. She hears heavy footsteps and a moment later a face looms over her; his face seems indistinct as she looks at it, it's not quite right and she can't make sense of it. The man looks at her for a long moment, then bends down and takes hold of her arms.

“I'll take you to the hospital,” he says, and begins to lift her up. She thinks she should feel pain, but she doesn't feel anything more than a little pressure around her stomach. He gets her up into his arms and she can't hold her head up, so it lolls back and her gaze falls on Bruce again.

“Wait,” she says, so quietly. Too quietly. “Wait,” she repeats. “Bruce...”

“He's dead,” the man says.

“No...” She swallows as much as she can against her dry throat. “Has a pulse.”

The man frowns at her, then puts her back down and steps over to Bruce. He kneels down beside Bruce and presses two fingers to his neck. Jane would hold her breath, but she can barely breathe as it is. The man stays like that for some time, then nods to himself and lifts Bruce up, pulling him over his shoulder. He comes back to her and bends down to pick her up again, and she sees his face more clearly for a moment – the skin is burnt and mottled, and one of his eyes is half shut because of it. She opens her mouth to ask who he is, but nothing comes out other than a low whine.

“Shh,” he murmurs. “You'll be okay.” He says it softly, gently, so different from a minute ago. She trusts that he's telling the truth.

And that's the last thing she remembers.

-

When Jane was fifteen, she broke her arm falling out of a tree, She'd climbed up there at midnight to watch the Hale-Bopp comet pass by, but lost her footing before she saw it and bent her arm behind her back tumbling back out. She was at the hospital well into the following afternoon and became intimately acquainted with that hospital smell – cleaning fluid and sick people.

That's the first thing she's cogent of as consciousness comes back. She gasps and starts coughing, as she feels air blowing into her nostrils. She paws at it with her eyes still closed, dragging the oxygen mask away from her face, and there's a sharp pain at the crease of her arm, something tugging at her and preventing her from pulling her arm any further in. She can't feel her legs. Machines start beeping. She just... 

She freaks out. She thrashes and pulls and feels people's hands on her, calling for her to calm down. That doesn't calm her down.

“Leave her be,” a voice booms, and everything stills, including her.

She opens her eyes and looks up into Thor's face. “You are okay,” he says.

“Can't feel my legs,” she says. Or tries to; it comes out markedly more slurred than that.

Thor nods. “The physicians gave you something called an 'epidural'.”

“Oh,” she says, and swallows past the dryness in her throat. “Oh God, I-- Where's Bruce? How...”

Thor's face shutters for a moment and her heart clenches.

“No,” she murmurs, “please don't...”

Thor takes a breath and shakes his head. “He is in the ICU.”

She shakes a little and drops her head back against her pillows. “Oh God. Okay. He's...”

“They say he is in critical condition.”

She swallows again. “Okay.” Her eyelids flutter shut against her will for a moment, and she lies like that for a moment before forcing them open again. “When did you get back from Asgard?”

“Last night,” he says, and purses his mouth. “As soon as I got word of... this. You have been unconscious for a day and a half.”

“Oh,” she says again, and shuts her eyes again. She begins to drift and feels Thor's hand rest heavy on top of her own. The beeping of the machines lessen.

-

There's no epidural the next time she wakes, and the pain is _excruciating_. She gasps and starts crying immediately, and there's a flurry of activity around her.

“The doctor will be here soon,” Thor says.

“What...” She takes a shallow breath and tries to sit forward, but the pain knocks her back again. “What happened?”

“You were shot.”

“I remember _that_ ,” she says. “I mean after that.” She gestures as well as she can to her lower half.

“You... had your hip replaced.”

“My...” She looks down at her legs. Her grandmother had a hip replacement, when she was seventy. Jane thought she had some years to go. “Okay.”

“The bullet did significant damage to your... pelvic area,” Thor says, and doesn't meet her eyes.

“What else happened?”

“They...” He glances to the door and relief colours his expression. “The doctor can explain,” he says, tipping his head towards the man entering the room.

“Hello, Dr Foster, I'm Dr Mayfield. I imagine you're in a lot of pain.”

She smiles wanly. “Thor said I had a hip replacement.”

Mayfield glances at Thor and clears his throat. “Yes, your right hip was fractured in several places, beyond our ability to repair.”

Thor makes a huffing sound.

Jane glances at him, then back at the doctor. “Uh, right. What else did you do?”

Mayfield looks at Thor again and takes a half step away from him. He seems... nervous. “The bullet passed through your pelvis and was lodged in your back, near your lumbar vertebrae, but we were able to remove it successfully.”

“Yeah, I don't feel paralysed,” she says. She looks at Thor; his face has darkened as he scrutinises the floor. “What aren't you telling me?”

Mayfield nods. “The bullet's trajectory was unfortunate and it caused a lot of damage. We had to perform a total hysterectomy and an oophorectomy, which is a--”

“You took my ovaries,” she says, “yeah, my mom is a nurse.”

“Ah yes, I believe I met her earlier,” Mayfield says.

“My mom's here?”

“She arrived yesterday,” Thor says in a low tone.

“Oh,” she says. “So, are they both gone?”

“No, only the right ovary, the left one is intact,” Mayfield says.

Jane sighs and rubs at her mouth. Her drip tugs at her arm. “Well, no menopause yet, at least.”

Mayfield nods. “Dr Foster, I'm very sorry, I know that this is a lot to absorb after such a trauma.”

“Uh huh. How's Bruce?”

Mayfield looks at Thor for a third time. “He's in the ICU,” he says.

“How is he?”

“He is... in critical condition. I'm sorry, I'm afraid that I can't tell you anything more.”

“Does he even have any next of kin?” she asks.

Mayfield looks uncomfortable, and since she knows that getting information out of a medical doctor is like blood out of a stone, she drops her head back and sighs heavily. “Can I get some more painkillers?”

Mayfield lights up. “Yes, of course, I'll get a nurse,” he says, and hurries off.

Thor moves closer to the bed and lays his hand on top of hers. “I am so sorry, Jane. I brought healers here as soon as I could, but they said there was nothing they could do once the...” His face darkens again. “Organ had been removed from your body.”

She nods a little. “Okay. Is someone with Bruce?”

Thor frowns. “Tony has yet to leave the hospital.”

“Okay, okay, that's good.” She closes her eyes and breathes out. “I think I'm going to go back to sleep now.”

-

The FBI visit her a few days later. With SHIELD gone, the other agencies had to pick up the slack. There had been many visits by the FBI to the tower since Jane joined the lab, and Tony always said that they were completely incompetent. Jane's not sure if the men that come to talk to her are incompetent, but they are definitely intimidated by Thor and her mom standing in the corner listening to every word.

“Can you tell us what happened?” one of the men says.

Jane sighs. She's graduated to sitting with pillows piled up behind her, manages to stay awake for a few hours at a time, but it still hurts like hell. “We were in the lab, it was like four am, and, uh... Bruce heard something outside the door. He told me to hide in the storage closet, but as I was going over to it, someone... came through the window. I don't know how, they're plate glass. The guy outside the door came in, too. The one who came through the window grabbed me, put a gun to my back, and... the other one told Bruce to stay calm because, um, his friend would kill me before Bruce... Hulked out.”

The agents share a look, then one of them nods. “And then?”

“Um... the other one got hold of Bruce and forced him to kneel and put a gun to his head. Bruce tried to get them to let me go and then... they just shot him.” She takes a breath and presses her hand to her mouth.

“Why did they shoot him?”

She shrugs. “I dunno. He wasn't trying to get away, neither was I... I thought they were kidnapping us, but...”

“And what led to you being shot?”

“Perhaps this would be best left for another time,” Thor says, stepping forward deliberately.

Jane shakes her head. “It's... okay. I struggled, after Bruce was shot. I managed to grab a stapler and hit one of the guys a couple of times. I guess I just pissed them off too much. They shot me to shut me up, I guess.”

One of the agents scribbles something down while the other picks up the questioning. “What happened after that?”

“Some... guy arrived. He shot them both and then, um... Picked me and Bruce up and I don't... remember anything after that.”

The agent nods. “Yeah, somehow your rescuer managed to avoid getting caught on any of the hospital cameras when he dropped you and Dr Banner off here. Can you describe him?”

Jane frowns and tries to think. It's hard to remember much of anything from that day, aside from the sound of that gun firing. “He was... He was black, part of his face was burnt. He seemed tall, but everyone seems tall to me, so...”

They both scribble some more stuff down. “How did the suspects get into Stark Tower? It's pretty hard to get in there if someone doesn't want you to come in.” The men share a look, one of them raising his eyebrow.

“I don't... They, uh, managed to get JARVIS offline, somehow, so without him I guess the tower is a lot less secure. I don't know how they'd manage to do that. I just...” She shakes her head and runs her hands through her hair.

“I think my daughter's getting tired, maybe you could come back later,” Mom says. Thor nods decisively.

“I will show you out,” he says, in a tone that brooks no argument and the agents are properly cowed in the presence of a prince. He shepherds them out and her mother approaches the bed and starts rearranging her pillows.

“Get some rest, okay?” she says, stroking Jane's hair.

Jane nods a little. “Okay,” she says quietly.

-

After a week of lying in bed, the physical therapist wants her up and walking. Thor puts up some resistance to that; she hears the words 'small' and 'fragile' a lot, but she does it anyway.

It's excruciating and exhausting to be standing up, even with the help of crutches. More than 'help'; there's no possible way she could walk unaided. She spends most of her time sitting down, doing stretches with the physio, and learns how hard it is to use a manual wheelchair. Really fucking hard.

The physio, David, wheels her back from her third session of the week, talking aimlessly; she doesn't really respond. She feels disgusting, has done since she came round. She's sweaty and greasy and her hair is stringy and gross. Bed baths don't really leave you with the feeling of being fully clean and even being able to have sit down showers now doesn't really help because she just keeps getting sweaty and greasy, not to mention tired and irritable.

As David takes her down the hall, she catches sight of Tony turning the corner away from her.

“Tony!” she calls after him.

He comes back round the corner and smiles slightly. “Sorry I haven't been to see you, Foster, I was just picking up some of this fine hospital coffee.” He holds up the two styrofoam cups he's got in his hands.

“It's okay,” she says. He looks almost as bad as she does, dark circles under his eyes, hair sticking up every which way. “I'm not much fun to visit.”

Tony snorts. “Yeah, I know what that's like.”

She smiles and turns to look over her shoulder at the physio. “You don't need to stick around, I can wheel myself from here.”

David nods. “Okay. I'll see you tomorrow, bright and early.”

“Bright and early,” she echoes.

“Physical therapy?” Tony asks as David walks away.

“Yep, got all sweaty and gross just to relearn how to stand up on my own.”

Tony pulls a face. “I did physical therapy for a while, after the reactor was put in. Didn't stick with it.”

“I'm shocked,” she says flatly.

He smiles. “Yeah... Hey, I heard about...” He waves his hand vaguely. “I'm sorry.”

“My babymaker?”

“I was trying to go for a little more tact...”

She shrugs. “It doesn't suit you. Honestly, I think Thor is more upset about it than I am.”

“Okay, well...” Tony says, shifting from foot to foot.

“I want to see Bruce,” she says.

Tony grimaces. “Oh. I don't... know... You probably need to rest, right?”

She sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. “I've got plenty of time to rest. Look, I know Thor wants me to stay in bed because I'm so fragile and stuff but I need to see Bruce. No one will tell me straight how he is, but I know what happened and if he's going to die...”

Tony cringes. “I... Okay. The ICU's one floor up.”

“Push me in that direction,” she says.

He gives her the coffees and pushes her over to the elevator. Everyone looks at them when they get in and she has to remind herself that they're looking at the great Tony Stark, not some woman in a wheelchair with stringy hair.

They have to be buzzed into the ICU and Jane gets a visitor's badge. The closer they get to Bruce's room, the more agents and cops she sees.

“There are plain clothes cops as well,” Tony murmurs as she looks around at them. “You've got them too, they're swarming everywhere.”

“Yay,” she mutters.

They reach Bruce's room. There's a window that looks into the room and Jane just catches the back of someone standing in there with Bruce.

“Who's that?”

Tony sighs. “That's his aunt Susan. Pepper tried to get one of us named as his next of kin, but apparently you can't do that without the person in question's permission. Susan was his legal guardian when he was a kid.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Okay...”

“She hadn't seen him in twenty years,” Tony adds quietly.

“Wow,” she mutters.

He opens the door and pushes Jane in. As soon as they're in the room Jane can hear the continuous hiss and click of a ventilator. “Hey, Susan, this is Jane, she wanted to see Bruce.”

Susan turns around, mostly blocking Jane's view of Bruce. Jane can see a little family resemblance – Susan has the same kind of thick dark hair shot through with grey, which she's got pulled back from her face in a messy bun. Her face is lined and drawn- she's probably around her mid sixties, but she looks much older today.

“You're Jane Foster,” she says, and takes one of the coffees from her with a smile. Tony plucks the other from her hand. “You were with him.”

“Yeah, I-- I was.”

“Are you okay?”

Jane looks down at her bandaged torso and legs and nods. “I'm fine.”

Susan frowns and purses her mouth up like Bruce does when he's unsure about something. Jane takes a breath. 

“Can I...?” She gestures to the bed.

“Oh, yeah, of course.” Susan steps away from the bed and Jane pushes herself over, waving off Tony's help.

Bruce has been intubated all right, along with a whole host of other tubes and wires attached to him. This is full on life support; this is the stuff you don't come back from. She swallows down rising bile and looks over his face. He's as white as a sheet and his head is bandaged up; brain surgery, she thinks. They shaved his hair off for it, which she could have guessed if she'd thought about it, but it takes her by surprise anyway, to see him bald – at least the parts of his head that she can see. The hair on his face hasn't stopped growing and he has a short beard that she guesses someone is keeping trim; he told her a while back that he shaves his face twice a day, most of the time.

The contrast makes her smile for a moment, then she hears that hiss-click again and tears swell in her eyes. “Ugh,” she mutters, and swipes at her eyes.

Tony puts his hand on her shoulder and squeezes.

“I don't even—” She shakes her head and swallows. “What did they want? Why did they taunt us just to ki-- shoot him?”

“Who fucking knows with Hydra,” Tony says.

“Hydra?” She sniffs and wipes her face again, then looks up at him. “ _Hydra?_ ”

“Yeah... Didn't Thor tell you?” he asks, grimacing a little.

“ _No_ ,” she says. “How do you know? Was it-- what did they want?”

Tony presses the heel of his hand to his forehead and sighs. “Well, your saviour, whoever he was, brought you two here in a helicopter, which he dumped nearby, and we managed to trace it back to Hydra. The rest of it, I dunno. I don't know.”

She thinks back to the night. _Thwip thwip thwip_. “I heard the helicopter blades outside the window, I think,” she says, then presses her fingers to her mouth. “God.”

“It's okay,” Tony says, but his voice sounds shaky. This isn't ever going to be okay.

“I should go,” she says, “I'm sorry for intruding, Susan.”

“You're not intruding,” Susan says, smiling softly.

“Thanks,” she murmurs. “I need to go rest, though.”

“You want me to take you back to your room?” Tony asks.

She drops her hands onto the wheels of the chair and shakes her head. “Nah, I can get back on my own.”

Famous last words. Her arms start to shake by the time she gets herself back to the elevator and they're completely noodly and useless by the time she gets into the hallway outside her room.

“Jane!” Thor calls from down the hall, and marches over to her. “Where were you, I've been looking for you!”

She takes a breath and relaxes her arms for a moment. “I went to see Bruce.”

He frowns. “You're supposed to rest after your therapy.”

A wave of tiredness washes over her and she struggles to keep her eyes open. “I needed to see him.”

“You need rest,” he says.

“I'm not asking your permission,” she snaps, and starts pushing herself into her room.

“Let me,” Thor says, rushing forward.

“I'm fine,” she says, and pushes harder, against the burn and shake in her arms. She manages to get into the room and over to the bed, and leans forward to pull the covers back. Getting _into_ the bed, however... There are grips to lever herself up out of the wheelchair but with her arms the way they are at the moment, she knows there's no way she'll be able to do that.

“Let me help you into bed,” Thor says.

She squeezes her eyes shut and nods. “Okay.”

He lifts her like she weighs nothing, and helps get her settled in bed. She drops her head back against the pillows and sighs.

“I'm only worried about the progression of your recovery,” Thor says.

“I know,” she murmurs. “I'm going to get some sleep now.”

“I shall sit and read.”

“No,” she says, too sharply. “I just need... quiet.”

“I can be quiet,” he says.

“I just can't sleep with some sitting in the corner watching me, you know?”

Thor looks at her for a long moment, then nods. “Of course. I'll be... in the cafeteria.”

“Thanks,” she mutters and closes her eyes.

-

Darcy and Erik visit at the one month mark of Jane being in hospital. Darcy's enrolled at UCL, Erik went back to Sweden to work at Uppsala University, and it was exam time when she got shot, so neither of them could really drop everything, not when she was given a good prognosis. If she was like... Bruce she imagines they would have come sooner. She doesn't blame them, though Thor and her mom obviously do.

“I bought you good English Cadburys,” Darcy says, presenting her with a gift bag full of chocolate. “Not the funny tasting American stuff.”

Jane smiles. “Thanks.

“How are you feeling, sweetheart?” Erik asks.

Jane looks at him and frowns, and Darcy laughs.

“Sweetheart?” she repeats. “Hi, Dad.”

He shakes his head and sighs. “I'm just trying to be caring.”

“Don't, you're freaking us out,” Jane says, and smiles at Darcy. 

She takes out a packet of chocolate buttons and starts eating a few. Despite what Darcy said about them being the real stuff, they taste wrong, and once she's got four or five down, her stomach starts to shake unhappily and she begins to feel nauseous. She puts the chocolate down and takes a breath.

“So, how were exams?” she asks. “Taking them and marking them.”

-

She avoids going back to Bruce's room for a week, and allows herself to be fussed over by everyone. Physio gets a little easier – she can stand on crutches for a little while without feeling like she might die. She's still exhausted all the time, and after seeing Bruce all hooked up and half dead she starts having nightmares about the hiss of the machines and the _thwip_ of the helicopter and the crack of the gunshot, but the doctor tells her it's normal to be so tired and says she'll be discharged in a few days.

She decides to go see Bruce again, while everyone's away sleeping or eating or whatever. She gets up on her crutches and probably takes fifteen minutes to go just one floor up, but she does get there, all on her own.

Susan is sitting in the room with him again and she waves Jane in when she sees her.

“Please sit,” Susan says, pulling up a chair as Jane huffs and puffs.

“Thanks,” she says, and collapses into the chair. She looks over at Bruce. “How is he?”

Susan sighs. “The same. Stably critical, I suppose.”

Jane nods and looks at Bruce with the ventilator tube in his mouth. It looks so... aggressive and violating that she has to look away again.

“So, uh. What was Bruce like as a kid?”

Susan smiles. “Oh... He was... angry a lot. He was an angry child but he was kind too. He was so sweet. Sometimes I felt closer to him than my own children.” She pauses and takes a breath. “When he was fourteen he saved up his money for months – I swear he was always working two or three jobs, even at that age; I shouldn't have let him, but it was the eighties – and bought me a necklace, that I'd admired in a store window for my birthday. We were pretty poor, so it was a big deal. My children didn't even remember and my husband got me some roses.”

“That's really nice,” Jane says, smiling a little too. “What was he into as a kid? I mean, I'm guessing physics...”

“Oh, he was my little scientist. He won lots of science fairs, made some good money from some of them, for those days.” She says it so indulgently, like a mother talking about her child; like the way Jane's mom talks about her. Jane doesn't know why they would have lost touch for twenty years.

“What else did he like?”

“He liked... animals. He pretty much took over all responsibility for our dog, fed him, played with him, took him for walks, took him to the vet... He spent a lot of time with his little cousin, too. Jennifer was about eight years younger than him, but he was good to her. He watched a lot of _Star Trek_ reruns. He was obsessed with Van Halen for a while. I definitely caught him shredding an air guitar in his bedroom a few times.” She laughs a little. “He was this tiny little thing – he grew about four inches at nineteen, so he was about your height for most of his teenage years – jumping up and down on his bed pretending to be Eddie Van Halen. He was so cute.”

Jane can imagine how cute he was as a child, a stocky little kid with too many curls. They were just getting to the point in their friendship where they could needle each other about embarrassing moments from the past, but she'll never get to tease him about any of this. Her eyes warm up, and she wipes at them before looking back at Susan.

Susan's crying too, tears running silently down her cheeks.

“Hey, I'm sorry, we don't need to talk about this any more,” Jane says, reaching over and laying her hand over Susan's.

“No, no, it's not that. It's just...” She shakes her head and raises her hand to her mouth. “Every time I look at him, all I see is Rebecca. He deserved so much better than this; they both did.”

“Rebecca?”

“His mother.” Susan wipes at her face. “I sat with her in the hospital with a crying eight year old on my lap, because of my...” She shakes her head angrily. “I hope he rots in hell.”

“Who?” Jane asks. Susan looks at her and frowns. “Um, I mean, you don't have to tell me...”

“Bruce didn't tell you about his parents?”

“Uh, no. I mean, we weren't super close yet, so...”

Susan keeps frowning for a moment, then nods. “I suppose it can't really hurt now. His father killed his mother when Bruce was eight, smashed her head into the sidewalk. She spent four days in a coma, just like this, before passing away. His father was my brother.”

“God, I'm sorry,” Jane says, so quietly it's almost a whisper.

“It's just like history repeating itself.”

Jane doesn't know what to say, or if she can say anything without crying, so she squeezes Susan's hand and looks away, to the door, and catches someone passing by the window before entering the room. She's tall, with long dark hair, and she's vaguely familiar to Jane.

“Hello,” she says as she steps into the room. “You're Dr Foster, aren't you?”

“Um, yeah, I just came to see how Bruce was...”

The woman smiles. “I'm Betty.”

“Dr Ross?” Well, that's why she's familiar to Jane, she's read a bunch of Dr Ross's papers. “I've read some of your papers.”

“I've read some of yours, too,” Betty says. “I'm sorry we're meeting under these circumstances.”

Jane nods and glances at Susan, who's pointedly looking away. “Um...”

“You talked to the doctor, then,” Susan says tightly. Jane frowns before realising that Susan isn't speaking to her.

“Yes...” Betty says and sighs. “They, uh. They want to turn his life support off. He doesn't, he doesn't have any brain activity any more.”

Jane goes cold and clasps her hands in her lap. “Oh...”

“I haven't agreed to that yet,” Susan says quietly.

“Susan, I know you don't...” She lets out a shaky breath and shakes her head. “I don't either, but this is what he'd ask for if he could, you know he would. He wouldn't want to be kept alive like this.”

“I don't know that,” Susan says sharply. “And you are not his girlfriend any more.” 

Jane squirms and starts to reach for her crutches.

“No, I'm not,” Betty says, her voice thick. “but I was for nine years. I know him. I know he'd hate this.”

“I'm gonna go,” Jane says quickly, and levers herself up onto her crutches as best she can without busting her sutures open. Betty has covered her face with her hand and her shoulders are shaking slightly. Jane touches her arm briefly. “I'm sorry.”

Betty crosses her arms tightly across her chest and nods, her eyes and cheeks red. “Thank you.”

Jane leaves the room and hears raised voices for a minute, then silence. She decides not to look back.

-

The next day the doctor tells her she'll be released in a couple of days and Thor starts packing up some of her things in the room. She's got some cards and flowers, although she never really looked at who they were from, and some clothes, the loosest and ugliest ones that could be found.

In the afternoon, while she's doing stretches so that her leg doesn't seize up, Tony comes around. His eyes are red-rimmed and his face is all blotchy.

“Tony?” Thor says.

Jane sits down carefully on the edge of the bed. “What's happened?”

“They're, uh, they're turning off Bruce's life support tomorrow,” Tony says quietly.

“Oh God,” Jane mutters. “No...”

“And that means that...” Thor says.

“That means he's going to die, yeah,” Tony says and rubs at his face. “All the doctors I got flown in... Couldn't do a thing.”

“I'm sorry,” Jane says.

Tony swallows and nods. “Yeah. I gotta go... rehydrate.”

Thor gets up and crosses the room to pat Tony on the shoulder. “I am truly sorry.”

Tony presses his lips together and nods, then gestures back down the hall and leaves without another word. Thor watches him go for a minute, then comes back over to Jane and sits down beside her. He puts his arm around her and kisses the side of her head.

“I am so grateful that you are still with me, Jane,” he murmurs.

“Yeah,” she mutters.

-

They're turning life support off in the afternoon, and Jane decides to go down there and... be there, if Susan will let her. She doesn't want to see her friend die but it feels like she needs to see it through. Thor tries to dissuade her because it'll be 'too upsetting', but she feels pretty damn upset as it is.

Susan lets her and Thor come in and offers Jane a seat, but it feels too fucking weird to sit and watch someone die, so she stays up on her crutches, leaning against the wall. Tony and Pepper are there, along with Betty and a woman introduced as Jennifer, Bruce's little cousin. She looks like she hasn't slept in a week.

The nurses and doctors fuss around the bed. Jane fixes her eyes on the floor.

“Take comfort in the fact that great warriors go to Valhalla,” Thor says softly.

“You believe that?”

“Of course,” he says, “do you not believe in a higher power? Your monotheistic God?”

“I'm a scientist,” she mutters.

“We'll be removing the feeding tube and the ventilator in a few minutes,” one of the nurses says.

Susan starts crying. Jane stares harder at the floor.

True to her words, four minutes later they begin the process of turning off the life support machines. The nurses start to remove the ventilator tube and Tony makes a noise.

“I can't watch this,” he says, and almost runs out of the room. Pepper closes her eyes for a second, then follows him, and Jane catches him say, 'I _can't_ , Pepper...' before his voice fades away.

“He may move or make noises,” the doctor tells them as he switches off the ventilator and the absence of hiss-click leaves the room silent except for the rustle of clothing.

Bruce starts blowing bubbles as spit accumulates in his mouth. Jane's mom warned her that this happens sometimes, but she didn't understand how disturbing and undignified it is to watch someone die that way. She looks away, at the heart monitor, as his heart rate starts to slow and she can hear choking sounds. God, he's going to choke to death on his own spit. 

Thor takes her hand and squeezes it, and she closes her eyes.

Someone takes a deep breath and lets it out. Thor's hand twitches around hers.

“Jane,” he murmurs.

She opens her eyes and sees the heart monitor first and his heart rate climbing again. He's breathing on his own.

“This can happen reflexively,” the doctor says quietly.

Jane watches the steady rise and fall of his chest, the drool drying on his face. The nurses keep checking on his vitals and the doctor keeps telling them that it's normal for the patient to keep breathing on their own for a while. After a few minutes Tony and Pepper come back in. Tony's face is damp.

“Is he...?”

“He's breathing on his own,” Jane says. 

Tony's face lights up. “He is?”

“The doctor says it's normal,” she adds.

Tony frowns and looks at Bruce. “Okay...”

They wait ten, fifteen, twenty minutes, while Bruce keeps breathing and his heart rate remains steady. The doctor asks to speak to Susan outside and Betty and Jennifer goes with them, which leaves Tony, Pepper, Jane, and Thor. And, of course, Bruce.

“He is strong,” Thor says, “perhaps he will yet survive this.”

“Maybe he will,” Tony says, with a heartbreaking note of hopefulness in his voice.

When the doctor comes back in, there's a whirlwind of activity in the room. They're taking him upstairs for another EEG, but aren't making any promises.

Jane's arms start to shake as there's a flurry of discussion around her. After a couple of minutes, Thor turns back to her and frowns.

“Perhaps it's time that you rest,” he says.

She wants to say no, but all her muscles are starting to go weak. “Yeah, okay.”

“Would you like be to carry you?”

She shakes her head. “No. No, I can do it myself.”

-

The doctors find that Bruce has some brain activity, though it's still very little, and put the feeding tube back in. They still advise that no one get their hopes up, but Tony practically vibrates with happiness when he tells Jane and Thor the news.

She leaves the hospital and goes 'home' to the tower, and finds that the whole apartment has been refitted. Handrails in the bath, around the toilet and all the sinks, by the bed... Everywhere. It's very nice of whoever thought of it, probably Pepper. It's very thoughtful.

“We wanted you to be comfortable,” Thor says, smiling widely.

“Yeah,” she says, looking at the shiny metal handles all around the living room, and the shiny metal crutches in her hands. “Thanks.”

She has to go back to the hospital every other day for physio. After her sessions she goes up to Bruce's room and invariably finds someone sitting with him, either his aunt, his cousin, Betty, or Tony, or all of them at the same time.

She comes one day and finds Betty there, talking quietly to Bruce. Jane tries to pass by quickly, but she still can't move quickly on her crutches and Betty catches sight of her.

“Jane,” she calls. “You can come in.”

She comes in and sits down beside Betty. “How is he?”

“Same as ever,” Betty says and rubs at her face before resting her chin in her hand.

“Are you okay?” Jane says, and instantly feels like a moron. The woman's sitting in a hospital room with her comatose ex-boyfriend. Obviously she's having the time of her life. “I mean... Uh... Ah, sorry.”

Betty smiles. “No, it's fine. I'm... not.”

Jane nods. That's hardly an surprising answer.

“It's not just...” Betty gestures vaguely at Bruce. “It's... well, the thing is, I'm married, now. I have a child, and a job, and I've been away from them for almost a month. I live out in California and I need to go home, but I don't want to leave him.”

“Oh,” Jane says. She knew that Bruce and Betty weren't together any more and that that was kind of a sore point for him, but she didn't know that Betty had moved on quite that much. “Well, I mean... He'd understand.”

Betty laughs. “Oh, he wouldn't. He can-- could be pretty sulky and childish. He didn't take it very well when he found out that I had a husband and a child.”

“I'm sorry,” Jane murmurs.

“It's okay. I still love him, you know. More than anyone. More than my husband. But I wanted to have a child and I didn't want to wait for Bruce any more. I've spent most of my life waiting for him. And now I think...” She waves her hand at him. “I think I can't cope with this, with who he'll be if he wakes up.” Her voice goes quiet at the end and she grabs a bunch of tissues out of a box on the night stand, and dabs at her face. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't be,” Jane says, and pats her arm. 

Betty shakes her head. “It's not like he's the only one that was hurt. Are you okay?”

“I'm...” She shrugs. “Upright. For a few days I thought it would be impossible to walk on my crutches, so...”

“What were your injuries? If... if you want to tell me.”

Jane nods. “The bullet went through my right hip, blew it out, took out my right ovary and my uterus, and almost hit my spine.”

Betty widens her eyes. “God, that's awful. So, you have an artificial hip?”

“Yeah, and the whole area is pretty torn up, so it's a learning curve walking again.”

“And your...?”

“Hysterectomy, yeah,” Jane says. “I mean, I wasn't using it, so... Could have hit my intestines, that wouldn't have been fun.”

Betty nods and they fall silent for a few minutes, the steady beep of his heart monitor the only sound in the room.

“You'll keep visiting him when I'm gone, right?” Betty asks after a few minutes.

“Of course I will,” she says. “Of course.”

“Okay, good. I don't want him to be alone...”

“He won't be alone, he's got Susan and Jennifer, too. And Tony.”

“Yeah. Yeah, Susan is certainly committed...” She says it in kind of a tight voice and Jane thinks back to their argument about turning off life support.

“Are you and Susan okay?”

Betty sighs and drops her head back against the chair. “I guess so. She, uh, she blames me for not waiting for him, I think. Thinks I'm cold for wanting to turn the life support off. She doesn't think I should really get involved if I'm not with him any more, and I guess she's right.” She sniffs and wipes at her nose with her tissue. “It's difficult letting go.”

“Yeah,” Jane murmurs. “I have trouble letting go of things too.”

-

Betty leaves for California a few days later. Jane keeps visiting Bruce's room after physio, despite the fussing of Thor. He fusses more than her mother does. At least Mom knows the amount of exercise she needs to keep her legs in working order; Thor is of the opinion that she's made of spun glass now, apparently.

She spends a lot of time talking to Susan; she lets out little bits of information here and there about Bruce's childhood. None of it sounds good.

When she comes in on Friday afternoon, Susan gets up as soon as she sees Jane.

“Oh Jane, can you sit with him while I'm gone? I have to deal with some things with my bank. You know what banks are like.”

“Yeah, of course,” she says, and takes a seat beside the bed.

She's never been in here with him alone before, she's always had someone there who knows him far better than she does. 

She spends the first few minutes quiet, watching the steady pulse of the heart monitor, then looks over his face. His skin looks pale and papery, his lips are dry and peeling and have lost all their colour, which is a sharp contrast to his dark beard. She looks at his hands next; his fingernails are totally white, and he has an IV running into a vein in his hand, but his knuckles are really hairy. Much hairier than she remembers them being before.

“You shave your knuckles,” she says and laughs. Of course, he doesn't respond.

She purses her lips and reaches over to touch his hand. She lets her hand hover over his for a second before touching his skin. His hand is cold but that's not surprising. She slides her hand underneath his, so that their palms are touching.

She feels like she should say something now. “Um, so... How's it going?” She shakes her head and presses her other hand to her face. “Ugh. Look, I...” She blows out a breath. “I'm sorry. Maybe if I hadn't fought... or, or made so much noise... I dunno, maybe they wouldn't have shot you. Maybe we'd be in a Hydra lab somewhere now. I don't know if that's better...”

His hand twitches. The doctors said he might have involuntary twitches, but her breath still catches in her throat. 

“Bruce?”

His hand twitches again. She grabs a crutch and pulls herself up to look at him.

“Bruce?”

His cheek twitches and his fingers close around her hand loosely.

“Fuck,” she mutters, and hits the call button of the nurse. “Bruce? Are you... awake?”

His eyelashes flutter and his cheek twitches again. She holds her breath, hits the call button again, and watches as his face keeps twitching, cheeks, nose, eyebrows, his mouth around his feeding tube.

And then he opens his eyes.

“Oh my God,” she whispers. “Bruce? Bruce?”

He blinks a dozen times without focusing on anything, then gags. He lifts his arm; or tries to, at least, but he can't lift it more than a few inches, and starts to wail. It's a thin, reedy sound interspersed with clicking sounds as he continues to gag against the feeding tube. His heart monitor starts to spike and beep insistently and finally, _finally_ , nurses and doctors run into the room. They crowd around the bed and it's hard for Jane to get out of the way with her crutches, but a nurse takes pity on her and helps her out.

“Is he going to be okay?” she asks.

“We're going to sedate him. You can speak to the doctor later,” the nurse replies, before heading back into the room. Jane tries to tell her that she's not family, but the woman has already gone.

When Susan comes back from her phone call fifteen minutes later, Jane tells her the news and Susan cries on the spot, out there in the hallway. Jane doesn't know what to do, so she just stands there until the doctor comes out to explain things. He tells them that Bruce is a seven on the Glasgow Coma Scale, still in severe condition, and only semi-conscious. Susan continues to cry.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warning: some description of unpleasant medical related things and unintentional ableism.**

She goes to the hospital everyday the week after Bruce wakes up, despite Thor's misgivings.

“You're going to the hospital again?” he asks in the morning, while she's putting on a t-shirt and very loose sweatpants, her uniform these days. She's never been a fancy dresser, but the grey sweatpants, discoloured white t-shirt, red hoodie combo is starting to get depressing.

“Yep,” Jane says, tightening the drawstrings.

“Perhaps a day of rest would be in order.”

She shakes her head. “I told Susan I'd be there.” She walks out into the living room and says hello to her mom, who's looking at her laptop on the kitchen table. She's staying with them for a while, in the spare bedroom, but after moving back to London after Dad died, her mom has lots of friends to catch up with and thankfully doesn't spend too much time mother-henning, unlike Thor.

“Susan has other confidantes,” Thor says.

She stuffs her feet into her tennis shoes and picks up her bag. “A promise is a promise.”

What she doesn't tell him is that the doctor wants her to have some scans to check that everything's going okay. She knows Thor means well, but she can't deal with having him standing over her again, asking what this and that machine does, and commenting on how far advanced Asgard is. How much better Asgard is. How much less of a physical wreck she'd be if they were on Asgard...

She waits until she gets to the hospital to drink her litre of water and sits around needing to pee in the waiting room. She plays games on her phone until she's called in for her appointment. 

She has to take her t-shirt off and pull her sweatpants down, and she tries her best not to look at her stomach. It's 'healing well', according to the doctor, but she still looks like Frankenstein down there.

“Your boyfriend can come in,” the doctor says.

“He's not here,” she says, “let's just get on with this, okay?”

The doctor raises his eyebrows and nods. He squeezes out the gel and spreads it around her stomach, and she's extremely glad Thor isn't here, when she thinks about why women normally have ultrasounds.

Everything's normal in there, according to the doctor, and he sends her off to be x-rayed after a brief detour to the bathroom.

The hip's still there, as well, and after a couple of hours walking up and down hallways, she manages to get to the ICU to see Bruce. For the last week, he's stayed in his semi-conscious state, in near constant distress over the feeding tube. It's upsetting to see him like that, yet she keeps coming back.

As soon as she's in the door, Susan and Tony descend on her.

“He started focusing!” Tony practically squeals.

“What?”

Tony grins and helps her into the room. Bruce is awake, propped up slightly with pillows, and when she moves closer to him, he looks right at her. He looks at her t-shirt, then at her face, then looks at Tony. The bandages around his head have been removed too, revealing short, stubbly hair.

“Oh wow,” she says. Then she sees his hands, or rather his wrists, strapped down with soft leather restraints. “Um, why are his hands strapped down?”

Susan grimaces. “Since he's been able to move his arms more, he keeps trying to remove his feeding tube. I said there must be a better way, but...”

“It's fucking barbaric,” Tony says. “But hopefully, you know, it won't be for long.”

“I guess...” Jane mutters. Bruce looks miserable though. “Is he okay?”

“He's pretty heavily sedated,” Tony says.

“Why?”

“Well, he's getting some of his motor control back, but he's not very... controlled about it,” Tony says with a grimace.

“Right... Can I...?” She gestures towards Bruce and Susan smiles.

“Of course,” she says, and lets Jane pass.

She sits down beside the bed and tries to smile reassuringly. He tugs at his restraints and whines, his eyebrows scrunching together and his throat working against the tube. She takes a breath and glances away.

“Hey, Bruce...” she mutters. He looks at her, but he looks so fucking sad, she can't stand it.

“Maybe we should let him sleep...” Tony says, and drops his hand on her shoulder.

“Yeah, yeah,” she murmurs and pulls herself up again. She pats his hand and tries another smile. “I'll see you soon.”

He whines again and she has to look away as she leaves the room.

-

The next day she's back for physical therapy. They go through the normal routine, stretches and step exercises, but at the end, David looks at her seriously and says that they need to talk.

“You should be coming off the crutches by now,” he says.

“It hurts,” she says. It hurts on the crutches too, her shoulders ache all the time, but at least that doesn't prevent her from walking.

He nods. “Yeah, it will, but your x-rays have come back okay. How about we drop one of the crutches and get you just on the other?”

“I guess...” she says.

“Come on, let's try it.”

He gets her up on the one crutch and makes her walk around like that. It's okay, although it starts to feel like walking with a cane.

“Let's try that out for a while,” David says, as if this is a joint effort of some sort.

“Yeah, okay,” she says, and starts to painstakingly collect up her things.

“Are you going to see Dr Banner now?” he asks.

She puts her bag over her shoulder and frowns. “Yeah, why, what's the problem?”

He tips his head to the side. “No problem. I'm starting therapy with him tomorrow. He's just been moved up here to the rehab floor.”

“He has?”

“Yeah, just this morning.”

She says her goodbyes and goes off in search of his new room. She's known well enough that a nurse points her in the right direction, even though technically the woman probably shouldn't. Bruce is alone when Jane finds him, in a room that's a lot more private than the ICU rooms. There's no window looking in, for one thing.

He looks at her when she comes in, tracking her movements without turning his head.

“Hey...” she says, and takes a seat.

He pulls at the restraints and stares at her.

“Still don't like them, huh?”

He gags and pushes his throat out, then pulls at the restraints again.

“If I undo your restraints, you're going to pull that feeding tube out,” she says. “You're supposed to keep it in.”

He makes a crying sound in the back of his throat and she squeezes her eyes shut. 

“Bruce...” She sighs and rubs her face. “Okay, I... Okay.” 

She glances at the door and goes back to close it over. Man, she really should not do this, this is really dumb. When she comes back to him, he's pulling like crazy at the restraints. 

“Stop,” she murmurs, and he stills enough for her to work on the clasp. It's fiddly, especially while holding herself up on her crutch. As soon as she gets the first one undone, he starts scrabbling at the other. “Hang on, hang on,” she says, and hurries around to the other side.

She gets that one off too and he starts pulling at the tube immediately. She grimaces and checks the door as he makes gagging noises. She looks back at him and wishes she hadn't. Wow, feeding tubes are long.

“I'll, uh, get a towel,” she says, and goes into the little bathroom to grab it. When she comes back out, he's still not done with the tube, and she approaches the bed carefully, holding out the towel to grab it when it's out. Another thirty seconds of gagging later, he manages to get it out and she grabs it off him and wraps it in the towel, then stands there holding it. She doesn't know what the hell to do with it, so after a moment's thought, she drops it on the floor.

Bruce starts coughing.

“Um...” She grimaces and looks to the door. They haven't been busted yet. “Please don't puke.”

She pulls out a wad of tissues from the box on the night stand and holds them to his mouth. “Breathe, okay? Slowly.”

He presses his hand over hers as he continues to cough and gag. She leans forward and rubs his back until his shaking subsides.

She pulls back and looks at him. “You okay?”

He looks up at her and drops his hand from hers to his neck and pulls a face. She wipes his face clean and balls the tissues, tossing them in the trash can.

“Your throat is probably pretty sore,” she says. “Do you want something to drink?”

He keeps rubbing at his throat as if he hasn't heard her, or maybe doesn't understand her. There's a water cooler in the corner of the room, so she goes over to it and gets some water for him.

“Drink this, okay?” she says, offering it to him. 

He looks at the plastic cup for a second, then reaches out with both hands and takes it. He holds it way too hard and water splashes on his hands and down his gown. He makes a noise of surprise.

“It's okay, it's okay,” she says, taking it back. “I'll refill it.”

She fetches more water and brings it back. “I'll hold it, okay?”

Bruce looks at her for a moment, as she raises the cup to his lips, then opens his mouth and lets her pour some water in. It's only while she's doing this that it occurs to her that maybe he can't swallow, maybe that's why the tube needed to stay in. And if he can't swallow, having the tube going back in is going to be ten times more distressing.

He closes his mouth and she lowers the cup and waits. Bruce looks back at her with his mouth full of water and frowns.

“Swallow,” she says. “Like...” She swallows exaggeratedly, pointing at her throat.

He tenses up his throat and gags, a little water escaping his mouth.

“Okay, um...” She reaches up and blots the water from his beard with her sleeve and thinks. When she was a kid, they had a dog who would never swallow pills. Even mixed into food, he'd eat around the offending pill and leave just a square inch of food left. In the end, her mom would put the pill in his mouth, close her hand around his muzzle, push his head back, and rub his throat to make him swallow. 

Jane doesn't know if that works with humans too, but she doesn't have any other ideas, and she's already got herself into this much trouble. She puts the cup aside.

“Okay, Bruce, I'm gonna... touch your neck, okay? It won't hurt.”

He doesn't react, so she decides to go ahead and do it. She rests the side of her index finger on his neck and strokes his skin. It's weird as hell, and Bruce looks confused, but she perseveres, and after a minute he swallows. His eyes widen a little and she grins.

“Do you want some more?” she says, picking up the cup again. He blinks, then takes it from her and drains it. And then they sit and stare at each other.

“Well...” she mutters.

Bruce looks around for a moment, then pulls up his blanket and looks down at himself. She doesn't say anything until he starts to shift around. At first she thinks that he wants to do something... private, but then she looks at all the wires attached to him and realises what's wrong.

“Uh.” She touches his arm and he lowers the blanket a little and looks at her. “Please leave the catheter alone, I don't think I can take anything else today.”

He drops the blanket and starts fiddling with his hands instead, just the same as he did before all of this. She always thought that was cute. He starts rubbing his hairy knuckles and she smiles.

“Yeah, you haven't been able shave your knuckles in a while,” she says. He looks up at her and she smiles. “Yeah, I know your secret shame now.”

He blinks a few times, then lifts his hand to his face and rubs at his beard.

“Itchy?” she asks. “Maybe I'll bring a razor with me sometime.”

He slides his hand down to his chin and starts working his jaw, first back and forth, then up and down, his teeth snapping together. He does this for a few minutes, just feeling everything out, she guesses. He works his throat as well, and she starts to wonder if he's hungry.

“Hey, do you want something to eat?”

He doesn't respond, but she doesn't really expect him to at this point, so she leans down and picks up her bag. She got up a brownie at Starbucks before coming to the hospital but then ended up feeling too sick to eat it. She gets it out and unwraps the packaging, then offers it to him. He looks at it for a moment before taking it from her. He bites into it slowly and his eyebrows go up; he eats the rest of it pretty damn quick, swallowing with only a little trouble.

“Good?”

He makes a grabbing motion at her.

“That's all I have, I'm sorry,” she says.

He blinks at her.

“I mean... I could go buy you something from a vending machine?”

He blinks again.

“I'll get you something,” she decides, and gets her wallet out of her bag. Bruce tracks her again as she gets up to leave the room, and she promises to be back in a few minutes.

There isn't a vending machine in the hall outside Bruce's room, so she has to go searching for a few minutes and finds one around a corner. She looks at the selection for a minute before settling on a packet of Reese's Pieces; she's seen him eat them before and they're easy to chew. Collecting them from the tray at the bottom is kind of challenging with her crutch but she manages it and makes her way back to the room.

Where Bruce is no longer alone.

There's a nurse in there fussing with him and talking to herself. Jane stands silently in the doorway for a minute before the nurse notices her.

“Do you know something about this?” the nurse asks her, pointing to the feeding tube on the floor and Bruce's loose restraints.

“Um.” She steps into the room. “He... got out of his restraints.”

“Mm-hm,” the lady hums. “And where did the towel come from?”

“Uh... I got it from the bathroom. I... didn't know what to do...”

“You should have called for a nurse.”

“Yeah... He's okay though, right?”

The nurse sighs. “He appears to be okay.” She looks at Bruce and frowns. “We were going to take your tube out tonight, Dr Banner. You are a very impatient man.”

He looks around the nurse at Jane and makes that grabbing gesture again. The nurse looks at her too, then pointedly at the candy.

“Um... Can he have this?” Jane asks.

The woman sighs. “It's not really what we feed our patients, but you can go ahead, just this once. Come and sit, the cleaner will be by soon to deal with this,” she says, gesturing to the scene of the crime. 

Jane retakes her seat and hands Bruce the candy, and she swears he smiles at her, just a little bit.

-

In the evening, Tony invites Jane and Thor up for dinner in the penthouse. She tries to get out of it but Thor insists that they go and she ends up spending forty minutes looking through the clothes in her wardrobe. She can't go up there looking like a slob, not in front of Pepper, all beautiful and put together as she is.

She can't wear pants because all she has are skinny jeans and the thought of the waistband pressing against her scars makes her cringe, so she goes through her small collection of dresses and picks out the one she hates the least. It's floral with short sleeves, and it reaches just to her knees, which is great, except that she hasn't shaved in a long while and she's starting to get furry. The idea of bending double to shave is just about as bad as having jeans on, though, so after a bit of digging, she finds socks that are long enough to reach over her knees and pulls her hair up into a messy bun – hopefully it looks artfully messy and not just gross greasy messy.

They go up to the penthouse at seven and she's reasonably relieved to find that they haven't put anything fancy on, just a dinner around a small round table, though admittedly it does have a view of basically all of Manhattan from a hundred floors up.

“So,” Tony says as he digs into his starter of smoked salmon and something. Jane passed on it with the excuse that she gets full easily and wants to enjoy the main course, but really it's just because she feels queasy at the idea of eating and wants to put it off as long as possible.

“I hear you and Bruce staged a jail break today.”

Thor looks out her and frowns. “What's this?”

“Um, well...” She shifts in her seat. “I undid Bruce's straps...”

Tony's eyebrows go high. “Seriously? I was just kidding! You really did that?”

“Yeah...”

“Why?” Thor asks.

She shrugs. “He was really upset, and... I couldn't stand it. He pulled the feeding tube out himself, I didn't help with that part.”

Tony grins. “You hadn't done it, I would've. Fucking doctors, man, can't trust 'em.”

“You would say that,” Pepper says with a shake of her head.

“Hey, when you've had men with knives fiddling around with your ribs, we can talk.”

“Yes, dear,” Pepper mutters.

Tony grins again, and begins collecting plates. “Pizza for main course!” he says, and gets up to fetch it.

It's pepperoni pizza, good old-fashioned New York stuff according to Tony. And pepperoni is her favourite kind of pizza; a few months ago she and Tony and Bruce had pizza in the penthouse while discussing their work in the lab. Of course that evening they were sitting on the floor by the TV, and she was in a t-shirt and jeans. Tony broke out some wine, the drinking of which Bruce abstained from, and Jane got very giggly. At the end of the night, Bruce led her back to her suite with a warm hand on her back. She kissed him on the cheek for that.

She picks at a slice of pizza for the fifteen minutes that they stay sitting at the table. Then Tony and Pepper decide to move the meal to the living room because it's more comfortable. Pepper leads Thor in there and Jane makes to follow but Tony leans forward and touches her arm.

“Hey, are you okay?”

“What?”

He points to her plate of uneaten pizza. “You haven't eaten anything, and I've seen you inhale four slices of pizza in under five minutes.”

She looks at the plate and shrugs. “I guess I feel sick.”

He nods. “Yeah, I didn't want to eat anything after I had the reactor out. Let's go into the kitchen.”

She shrugs again and he picks up her plate, calling to Pepper and Thor that he's getting Jane another drink. Jane pulls herself up onto her crutch and follows him into the kitchen.

“Do you want anything to eat or should I toss it?” he asks.

“I don't know, uh...” Her stomach growls a little and she leans herself up against the kitchen counter. “I am hungry, I just...”

“Don't want to eat,” Tony finishes. “Yeah. How about I scrape all the cheese and stuff off and you just have the bread?”

“Yeah, that might be okay.”

He nods and starts scraping the pizza off into the trash can. “So, how's everything else going? You've been spending a lot of time with Bruce.”

“I'm okay. Physio's going slower than my therapist likes and I let a man yank a tube out of his intestines today, so...”

Tony smiles and hands the pizza base back to her. “Sounds like a normal day to me.”

They spend another hour or so with Tony and Pepper before going back to their suite. Jane's exhausted and only just manages to change into her pyjamas and do her teeth before rolling into bed. Thor gets in beside her, dipping the mattress down low. He leans over to her and kisses her neck, trailing his fingers across her stomach.

She flinches away.

“Not tonight?” he asks softly.

“No,” she says, pulling her blanket up to her chin. They haven't had sex at all since the shooting, and she's barely touched herself down here, it still hurts so much.

“Sleep well,” Thor says, and kisses her gently on the cheek before retreating back to his side.

The next day she goes to see Bruce, as normal, and as soon as he sees her, he holds out his hand and grabs at the air. On a tray in front of him is a bowl of something she'd guess is muesli, along with some green jello – it's mostly uneaten.

She rolls her eyes and reaches into her bag to get her wallet. She buys him a Snickers this time and he eats it quickly and licks his fingers, then starts gnawing at his nails instead. 

“Hey,” she says, and touches his hand. “Don't do that.”

He frowns and picks up the wrapper instead, twisting it between his fingers. She picks up the jello and takes a bite.

“This isn't bad,” she says.

Bruce pushes the muesli away and wrinkles his nose.

She starts bringing him candy everyday, and his food choices get better – no more mushy baby food, instead he gets soggy sandwiches and plain chips. He eats those, at least. His rehab starts with light physical therapy, though by the end of the first week he's mostly walking normally, aside from occasionally bumping into things. David is amazed, according Susan, who smiles from ear to ear when she tells Jane. Jane tries not to be jealous.

Cognitively, another therapist is working with him and starts him off on really basic logic puzzles, like the kind one year olds play with. It made Jane cringe at first, but he seems to like them and at least it cuts down on the time that he spends staring blankly at things. They're 'retraining his brain', the therapist says. 

She wishes she could retrain her body the same way, and her brain too, really; train it to be able to look at her scarred lower half without feeling like she should go back to bed and curl up under the blankets for the day. If she even could curl up, if the pressure on her stomach and hip didn't hurt so much.

“Can I come with you to your therapy today?” Thor asks as she's getting ready. She's graduated from sweatpants to leggings – it makes her feel slightly more human, at least.

“Uh, physical therapy isn't really a group activity...” she says.

Thor nods slowly. “Are you going to visit Bruce after?”

“Uh, yeah, probably.”

He smiles. “May I accompany you there? I haven't seen Bruce for a time. I could meet you after your therapy.”

“Um...” She scratches at her head and shrugs. “I guess so, sure.”

“Excellent!”

She goes to her therapy and sure enough, Thor is waiting outside the door when she gets out. He extends his arm to her with a smile and she takes it carefully. Bruce's room is a reasonable distance from the gym and at her current pace it takes about ten minutes to walk over. They pass the vending machine on the way and she stops, digging around in her bag for some change.

“Are you hungry?” Thor asks. “We can go to Starbucks after.”

“I'm just getting something for Bruce,” she says. She tries to mix up the candy she buys him, so after a moment's consideration, she chooses a large Kit Kat. When she starts to bend down to retrieve it, Thor swoops in and grabs it for her.

“Do you give Bruce food a lot?”

“Sure,” she says, and takes it off him.

When they get into the room, Bruce is playing with one of his musical toys but when he looks up and sees her, he holds his hand out like normal and she gives him the candy bar. He rips it open and starts eating it as he turns his attention back to the toy.

“What is this?” Thor asks.

“It's a game,” Jane says. “You have to put the shapes in the right holes and then it plays music.”

“I see,” Thor says, as Bruce puts one of the shapes in the right place and the toy plays its little jingle. He grins around the Kit Kat stuck in his mouth. “He really has returned to childhood, hasn't he?”

She blinks and looks at Thor. “ _What?_ ”

“His... mental faculties,” Thor says slowly.

“How...” She shakes her head as she feels her face start to flush. “How can you call a forty five year old man a child to his face?”

Thor looks pained. “Jane, I do not believe that Bruce can understand what we are saying.”

“That's not the point!” she shouts. She didn't mean to shout, but that's how it comes out. Bruce starts and looks up at them with his eyebrows scrunched together. “Why don't you just... go home and I'll meet you there.”

“Jane...”

She shakes her head and drops her voice to a whisper. “We'll talk about this later,” she hisses.

Thor stands there for a second longer, then nods and leaves the room. Jane tries to let the tension leave her body as she turns back to Bruce. He's still looking at her and holds out his half eaten Kit Kat.

She smiles and wraps her hand around his. “It's okay, you keep it. Show me your game.”

She stays out for as long as she can, but inevitably she gets tired and has to go home. Thor rushes to meet her at the door with apologies. She accepts them with a nod and a few grunts, and excuses herself to bed. Her mother pops her head out of the spare bedroom and raises a questioning eyebrow. Jane shakes her head and hobbles into the room to lie down on the bed.

-

The next day, Jennifer is sitting with Bruce. Bruce seems to be asleep, lying on his side facing away from the door, and Jennifer is tapping on her iPhone. Jane raps her fingers quietly against the door frame as she comes in.

Jennifer looks up and smiles. “Look, Bruce, Jane's here,” she says, and Jane realises that he isn't asleep. He doesn't react to Jennifer's words, though.

Jennifer pats him on the shoulder and gets up. She steps around the bed with a worried expression.

“He's been pretty withdrawn today,” she says to Jane quietly.

Jane looks at his back, the way his shoulders are rounded and hunched in. He hasn't asked for his candy bar.

“Is he okay?” she asks. Her stomach is starting to get a wobbly feeling.

“The nurses thought he might be feeling unwell, but the tests came back fine,” Jennifer says. “They said it's normal for his mood to be up and down, so...” She shrugs a little. “I'm actually really hungry, could you stay with him until I get back?”

“Of course,” Jane says quickly. “Yeah, of course.”

“Great,” Jennifer says, “I won't be more than twenty minutes, probably. Do you want me to get you anything?”

Jane shakes her head and begins to make her way over to the chair next to bed. “I'm good.”

Jennifer leaves and Jane sits down facing Bruce. His eyes are open and he's staring vacantly at the wall behind her.

“Hey,” she says softly. When that doesn't get his attention, she reaches down to her bag and pulls out a Milky Way bar. “Hungry? They don't have these in the vending machines so I went on a special trip for it.”

He looks at the candy bar, then looks back at the wall.

She sighs and puts the bar down on the bed near his arm. “Bruce,” she murmurs and after a moment takes his hand. “Bruce, look, if... what Thor said yesterday...” She shakes her head and tightens her fingers around his hand. “I don't think that, no one thinks that. Thor's just... he's an idiot. I'm really sorry.”

Bruce stares at her and it does cross her mind that maybe Thor is right and Bruce can't understand what she's saying. She isn't always sure, he doesn't always react to words, but he seems to understand what's going on around him, he understands the games the therapist gives to him... 

He squeezes her hand back and lets go in favour of picking up the candy bar.

Jane laughs and Bruce smiles back shyly and starts eating. By the time Jennifer comes back, Jane has managed to get Bruce to play red hands with her.

He stays pretty withdrawn over the next few weeks, though, and the doctors start to worry about him. They tell Susan that it isn't that unusual for progress to stall for a while, but that it's important to stop Bruce from regressing any further. Everyone is puzzled about why Bruce is suddenly disinterested in everything and day by day, the guilt starts to eat at her.

-

Today Bruce is sitting cross-legged on the bed, picking at his feet while Jane sits in a chair and tries to think of a way to engage him.

“Hey,” she says, and Bruce looks over at her slowly. “Do you want to play a game?”

He blinks.

“Okay,” she murmurs, and reaches over to the drawer by his bed to get out one of his games, a board game that the therapist says is good for Bruce because it involves several different aspects, counting, understanding instructions, spatial awareness of the board. It's a very basic game, not even on the level of snakes and ladders, but it's something to do.

“What piece do you want to be?” she asks an unenthused Bruce. It's jungle themed, so there's a choice between lion, monkey, elephant, and giraffe. Bruce blinks again. She gives him the elephant and takes the lion for herself. “Okay, I'll start.”

She throws the dice and rolls a four. “One, two, three, four,” she says, moving her piece across the board. “Your turn!”

When he doesn't move, she puts the dice in his hand. “Throw it on the board,” she says.

He looks at her, then drops the dice on the board, rolling a six. 

“Okay!” she says. “You've got to move your elephant six places from the start. That's two more than me.”

When he doesn't move, she pastes on an even bigger smile and gestures to the elephant. He glances at her, then slowly picks it up and looks at the board. She watches him hopefully as he stares down at it, but then he starts to frown and his grip on piece tightens.

She reaches over and starts counting for him. “You go one, two, three--”

Bruce shoves her hand away and scowls, then pushes the board away too, her lion falling onto the blanket.

“Okay...” she murmurs, as Bruce's face contorts. “Bruce...”

He grunts, picks up the board, rips it in two, and hurls it across the room, then gets up off the bed, heading towards the door.

“Bruce!” she says, and hurries after him as quickly as she can. He's making agitated, growly sounds under his breath, and she isn't sure what he'll do if he takes off down the hallway. He hasn't gone anywhere alone since the shooting and she's hardly in a position to run after him.

“Bruce,” she repeats, reaching him as he gets to the door. He has a moment's trouble with the door handle, which gives her time to grab hold of his arm. “Bruce, calm down,” she says, and grabs hold of his other arm as well.

That, it turns out, is a lousy idea. Bruce fights against her, squirming and flailing his arms, and for some reason she doesn't do the smart thing and let go but instead holds on harder, her crutch falling away from where she'd wedged it under her arm. She really shouldn't be that surprised, but Bruce is _strong_ , and she's a skinny girl with a bum leg. Bruce manages to get the door open but it slams closed again in the tussle, and he throws his arm back, elbowing her in the stomach.

That sure as hell makes her let go, mostly because all of the air goes out of her and she can't breathe, let alone stand up straight. She can't really stand up _right_ , either, not without her crutch, which she currently has no chance of retrieving, and she thinks she's about to hit the deck, until she feels Bruce's hands on her.

He guides her to a chair and helps her into it, then crouches down in front of her. She's only half aware of this as she tries get her breath back. She gasps and gasps, wrapping her arms around her middle. The pain is sharp and briefly excruciating, but it starts to fade to a dull ache after a couple of minutes, and she's able to open her eyes slowly.

Bruce is crying, tears rolling down his cheeks as he rests his palms on her legs.

“Hey,” she says, her voice coming out quiet and rough. “It's o—okay. I'm just fragile around there, you didn't do anything bad.”

Bruce keeps on crying though, and she reaches out, her hand shaking a little from the spike of adrenaline, and wipes her thumb across his cheek. “Come here,” she says quietly, tugging on his arm gently. He shuffles a little closer and she settles her arms around him, spreading her hand out over his back and rubbing. His head is bowed against her shoulder and she can see the knotted scar of the gunshot. His hair has grown in a lot, and just as thickly as before, but the scarred area remains hairless and she can't stand to look at it. She rests her cheek against his coarse hair and sighs, and Bruce sniffles a bit and rests his hands on her waist.

“It's okay,” she murmurs. They stay like that for a few minutes, until the pain in her side subsides and Bruce stops sniffling. She takes a breath and pulls back, and Bruce sits back on his haunches in front of her.

His face is wet with tears and he doesn't try to dry it, so she pulls a few tissues out of the tissue box and starts drying it for him. He sits still and lets her, then starts fidgeting when she's done.

“Everything's okay,” she says, and drops her hand to his shoulder. 

He smiles a little, then gets up and collects the torn up pieces of the board game and drops them into the trash can. He comes back to the bed and empties out the remaining pieces from the box and takes the empty box to the trash can as well, then returns to the bed and picks up all the pieces. He sets them down carefully on the night stand, then sits down on the bed and looks at her.

They stay like that for a few minutes, until she gets up and comes over to the bed. Bruce looks at her anxiously as she sits down beside him, but she puts her arm around his back and he rests his head against hers without much hesitation.

By the evening, she has a grey-green bruise in the shape of Bruce's elbow on her rib cage. Thor makes her and Mom a nice dinner and when they go to bed he asks very gently if they might try to have sex again. She's been saying no to everything recently, even being touched, so she nods.

She keeps her t-shirt on because she doesn't want him to see the bruise, or at least that's what she tells herself, and turns the lights right down before letting Thor kiss her and pull at her underwear.

She doesn't mind it so much at first, it's kind of nice to be kissed and fondled, but when he tries to penetrate her...

“Jane, are you okay?” he asks, as the cold shock of pain settles on her. “You are not normally this tight.”

It's getting harder to draw breath, and she takes a moment to respond. “Just... go slowly.”

“I'll use my fingers first,” he says, and presses his fingers to her. 

It hurts, but not so badly that she tells him to stop, and after a few minutes he tries again, sliding into her slowly. He's not even halfway in when she feels the worst kind of stabbing pain she's ever felt.

“Stop, stop!” she shouts, pushing at his shoulder. He tenses up immediately and pulls out, and she scrambles to sit up as quickly as she can, which sends another wave of pain through her.

“What's wrong?” he asks, sounding stricken, and tries to touch her. She cringes away and starts scooting off the bed.

“I'm just not... ready yet,” she mutters, and grabs her crutch. She hobbles to the bathroom and closes the door before Thor can follow, and spends a couple of minutes gagging over the sink. The pain is subsiding very slowly, but she can't bring herself to check down there, so she takes a couple of Ibuprofen with tap water and comes back out.

“Jane? Should I call for a doctor?” he asks, fussing over her as she walks back to the bed.

She shakes her head and sits down, snagging her underwear with her crutch and lifting them up to her hand. She eases them back on and gets back under the covers. “I just need some sleep, okay?”

“Of course,” Thor says. “Would you like a drink?”

She grits her teeth. “Just sleep, thanks.”

“Of course,” he says again, quietly.

-

Bruce's therapist moves their appointments from his room to the recreation room. It isn't going well, according to Susan, and one day when Jane's passing the rec room going to her physio appointment, she sees Bruce in there with his therapist. He's standing in front of an easel, only the body of it is made of plastic, not wood, and he's holding a crayon in his fist. Appointments are private, and she knows that she shouldn't stop and watch, but she does anyway. 

The therapist seems to be talking to Bruce, gesturing to the piece of paper mounted on the easel. It's already marked with random red crayon lines and after some convincing he lifts the crayon to the paper and makes another line. The therapist is showing him flashcards with the alphabet on them, and Jane realises that he's trying to copy the letters onto the paper, but he's still holding the crayon in his fist, like a toddler, and just makes some more random marks.

Then he notices her watching and drops the crayon. The therapist points to it, but he shakes his head and pointedly looks away. Jane hurries to her own appointment.

The therapist encourages him to spend more time in there – a more stimulating environment, according to Susan – and Susan asks Jane to join him. He's happier after being with her, Susan says

The room is very... childish; it looks like the children's waiting area at a doctor's office. There are couches and beanbags all around, boxes of toys, building blocks, crayons, piles of early learning books, one of those wire things that you push wooden pieces along... Bruce looks miserable.

“So...” she murmurs, having eased herself down onto a squashy couch that she'll have trouble getting back off of later. There are flashcards and books with thick cardboard pages on the table in front of them; she picks up the pack of flashcards and starts to look through them. “This is what you're working on at the moment?”

As soon as the words are out of her mouth, they give her pause. The last time she said that to him, he was working on Tony's renewable energy project, engineering arc reactors to be as small as possible for use in poverty-stricken areas. He was really fired up about it, pulling all-nighters, typing on his computer with one hand while eating a sandwich with the other, immersing himself in JARVIS's holographic renderings of the component parts. He could talk for hours about it, while she sat on the couch with her legs drawn up to her chest, listening and interjecting every now and then. Those were good nights...

She looks at the two of them, Bruce's slightly vacant gaze and her bum leg lying out straight in front of her. She sighs and flicks through more cards. 

“E is for elephant, F is for flowers, G is for--”

Bruce plucks the stack out of her hand and throws them across the room, where they of course go everywhere, twenty six cards fanning out all over the floor.

“All right...” she murmurs. Bruce grimaces at her and picks up one of the cardboard books, pitching that across the room as well. When he reaches for the second one, she leans forward and covers his hand. “Okay, you made your point.”

He huffs and leans back against the couch cushions, crossing his arms over his chest.

She smiles a little and elbows him gently. He elbows her back. She pushes his arm with her hand and he shoulder checks her. She grins and puts her arm around him. The muscles under her hand relax, and he leans back a bit, smiling back at her.

“Those books suck, don't let them get to you.”

Bruce pouts, and kicks at the table.

“I bet we could do better,” she says.

Bruce raises his eyebrows. 

She looks around and spots a notebook lying on a table nearby. “Can you, uh...”

Bruce looks at her, then at the notebook, and gets up to fetch it. He brings it back and hands it to her before sitting down. The notebook has some marks in it which look like Bruce probably made them with one of his hated crayons. She picks up a crayon from the table in front of them, but it feels all waxy and weird so she puts it back down and digs in her bag for a pen, instead. She finds a blue ballpoint and clicks it open.

“Okay...” she says, flipping to a clean page. “A is for... atom.” She scribbles it along the top and draws a crude drawing of an atom underneath it to show to Bruce.

He smiles and gestures to the next page.

“B is for...” She drums the pen against the notebook. “Hm. Black hole? How do you draw a black hole?”

Bruce makes the circular gesture with his hand and she nods and draws a circle on the page, filling it in with the pen. “Blue hole,” she mutters, and Bruce smiles. 

She pauses for a moment and looks at him. That motion he made with his hand... He definitely understood what she was saying. She gets a kind of fluttery feeling in her chest, and looks back down at the page.

“Okay. C. What's C for?”

-

Bruce's therapy sessions don't get any better (neither do Jane's, but that's a different story), and Bruce ends up in a foul mood most days.

“It's like when he was a teenager,” Susan says as they wait outside the rec room for his appointment to end. There's a thump from inside the room that Jane assumes was Bruce throwing something.

“Did he throw stuff a lot when he was a teenager?”

Susan smiles a little. “Yeah. He broke his bedroom window once throwing a textbook through it. He punched a hole in the drywall once, too.”

Jane raises her eyebrows. “Really?”

“Mm. He was very angry back...” Susan sighs and shakes her head. “He's very angry. Funny thing is, he never did it in front of me, back then. I'd just find the evidence the next day.”

Jane nods. Six months ago she'd have said that she couldn't imagine Bruce acting like that, but now...

They lapse into silence for a few minutes, listening to the therapist try to instruct Bruce to write out the alphabet; God, it makes Jane cringe every time, thinking of all those early learning books.

“I'm thinking of taking Bruce back to Ohio,” Susan says suddenly.

Jane blinks. “What?”

Susan shrugs. “I don't know what else to do. I have a job out there, some sort of a life. There are good hospitals...”

“But Bruce hates Ohio,” Jane says. “You can't... he's a grown man, you can't make him-- you can't make him go back there.”

Susan grimaces. “I know, but what I am supposed to be? He has to be looked after.”

“You can-- you can... I'll look after him,” Jane blurts out. Susan raises her eyebrows. “I mean, I mean, me and Tony, Pepper... We can look after him. We're his friends.”

“Maybe,” Susan murmurs, as the therapist comes out of the room.

“He's in a pretty bad mood,” she warns them.

She isn't wrong. Bruce is pacing the room and barely reacts when they come in. Susan goes over to him and tries to touch him but he shrugs her off. She tries a second time, but he grunts and pulls away from her. She rubs at her face and looks at Jane.

“I'm going to... get some fresh air. Are you okay here, Jane?”

Bruce glares at Susan and Jane nods. “Yeah, I'll be fine.”

Bruce keeps glaring at his aunt until she leaves, then goes back to pacing. Jane stands by the door for a few minutes before deciding to take a chance and walk over to him. She stops a short distance from him and smiles.

“Hey.”

Bruce looks at her and pouts a little. Jane raises her eyebrows and he huffs.

“What's wrong?”

He screws up his face and points towards the door.

“Your aunt?”

He huffs again and lays one arm across the other, rocking them back and forth like he's holding a baby.

“You... have a baby...?” she asks slowly. She's fairly certain that he _does not_ have a kid out there.

He points to himself angrily, staring at her hard. 

“You want a baby...?” she tries again, feeling a funny pit form in her stomach.

He buries his face in his hands and screams for a moment. His shoulders are getting all bunched up and hunched in. The first thing that comes to mind is Hulk and her chest tightens at the possibility. She's never seen the change in person, and as fascinating as it is, she doesn't think that now is really the time.

“Okay!” she says. “It's okay, I can do better. Show me again.”

He drags his hands through his hair, then drops them to his sides, revealing his bright red face. He's breathing hard and really staring her down. She swallows.

“Show me again.”

He sucks on his teeth for a second then makes the baby rocking motion, points to himself, and shakes his head really violently.

“You're... Oh! You're not a baby!”

He nods and gestures hard at the door.

“I know, I know... Susan means well, and the therapists...”

He narrows his eyes and balls up his fists at his sides. 

“I know that doesn't make it any better,” she adds. “They're just... they don't... I guess they just see the brain injury now, not you...”

He turns away and picks up a crayon from an open pack. She's not sure if he understood what she said, or if she should have said it at all; she doesn't want to make him feel _worse_ than he already does.

He goes over to the easel and starts drawing a long vertical line from the bottom of the paper, ending in a curve at the top, then continues the line back down, dragging the crayon out to the side of the paper to draw a protrusion, then back down to the bottom. It looks like...

“Stark Tower,” she says.

Bruce jabs his finger at it, then points to the door.

“Did Susan... tell you about Ohio?” Bruce makes a phone motion with his hand to his ear. “You heard her on the phone?”

He jabs his finger at the drawing again.

“You want to go back to Stark Tower?” she says.

He clenches his fists, gestures to the door, then starts pacing again.

“Okay. Okay, Bruce, look,” she says, stepping closer to him. He flinches, drawing his shoulders up to his ears. “Hey, look, you're not going to go back to Ohio, okay? I promise.”

He glances at her and pouts a little.

“I promise, okay?” she says. “I promise you won't go back to Ohio. You're going to be... you'll be home by the end of the week.”

He furrows his brow at her, bottom lip still pressed out.

“I _promise_ ,” she repeats with a certainty that she shouldn't have, because she has no authority to make promises like that. “Trust me.”

He stares at her for a moment, then takes a step closer to her, and swings his arms at his side a little, his fingers twitching. She smiles back and puts her arms around him, drawing him in for a hug. He hugs her back, hard, burying his face in her shoulder.

She rubs his back and sighs. “It's going to be okay,” she mutters.

The first thing she does when she leaves the hospital is text Tony and ask if they can talk. He replies that he's in the penthouse and she can come straight up when she gets back.

“So, what's up?” he asks when he lets her in. It's the late afternoon and he appears to be in his pyjamas already, but she isn't really in a position to judge.

“It's about Bruce.”

Tony sighs and gestures to a couch. “When isn't it? You wanna sit?”

“Thanks,” she says and follows him into the sitting area. She leans her crutch against the arm rest and sits down, stretching out her bad leg in front of her. “Have you talked to Susan recently?”

“Not in a couple of days,” he says and sits down across from her. “Why?”

“So, she hasn't told you about going back to Ohio with Bruce?”

Tony's eyes widen. “No, I think I'd remember _that_.”

“He doesn't want to go, he's really freaking out, and I, uh, I told him he wouldn't have to.”

“Okay...” Tony murmurs. “So, I'm assuming you haven't changed Susan's mind.”

She shakes her head.

“So... what do you suggest?”

“I think he should come back to the tower. And I... told him he would by the end of the week.”

Tony leans back against the couch and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Wow, you really locked yourself in there. He won't be able to live in his suite alone.”

She nods. “Yeah, I know I thought maybe...” She tips her head slightly and looks around the living room.

Tony raises his eyebrows and clicks his tongue. “Uh huh, so you're volunteering me? I'm going to have to talk to Pepper about it first.”

“Sure, okay.” She lifts her shoulders. “He's just... he's going to lose his mind if he stays in the hospital. I mean, I found it hard enough and it was only a few weeks. He's been there for months. He needs to be at home. He needs...” She pauses and clasps her hands together. “He needs to be with people who really care about him.”

Tony sighs heavily and smiles a little. “Yeah, I can think we can do that.”


	3. Chapter 3

It takes some convincing to get Susan to agree to let Bruce go back to the tower, but Bruce's concerted effort to ignore her every time she enters the room helps somewhat. A week passes that sees both Erik and Darcy departing to visit family and Jane puts the hard word on Tony to help get Susan agree.

“I think he'd be better off at home with his friends. I seem to just be upsetting him,” she confides to Jane towards the end of the week. She says it really sadly, and it does make Jane feel bad, but it also means he won't be going back to Ohio, which is a step in the right direction.

Getting the doctors to agree to release him proves slightly harder. It's a private facility so beds aren't a problem, and Bruce's progress has been stalled for over a month, he's non-verbal and emotionally volatile.

“I don't see how that's any different than before,” Tony says to the doctor. “Look, exactly how much money are you planning to get out of me?”

They release him on Sunday afternoon. Susan tries to help him get dressed but he bats her away and ends up putting his hoodie on inside out. He raises his arm and frowns at the seam of the cuff, then pulls the hoodie off again and puts it on the right way round. Jane smiles at him and he blushes a little and starts fiddling with the zip.

Tony brings the car around at three and it's not like Bruce hasn't been outside since the accident – the hospital has beautiful gardens – but he still looks nervous.

“Come on,” Jane mutters, and takes his hand, tugging him towards the car.

He spends the entire ride back looking out the window, fingers resting on the glass while he keeps holding her hand with the other. Tony glances back a few times, expression unreadable. Susan is sitting up front with him and sends a couple of worried looks Bruce's way too.

They get to the tower half an hour later, pulling into the underground garage. Bruce takes some convincing to get out of the car but he does, after some gentle tugging from Jane.

“Okay!” Tony says, clapping his hands together. “We're home!”

The four stand around awkwardly for a moment before Tony takes a breath and goes to the trunk to get Bruce's bags. Once he's got them and locked up the car, he gestures to the elevator and they all shuffle inside. Bruce spends the short trip staring at his feet, wincing when his ears block up from the acceleration of the elevator. They get out at the penthouse and Tony starts talking immediately, giving them the 'grand tour' and showing them Bruce's room. Jane was kind of surprised to hear that Pepper is allowing Bruce to stay in her home, but then Jane doesn't really know her that well. The only other option seemed to be having Bruce stay in her and Thor's suite, and for various reasons that wouldn't have worked out.

“Try the bed!” Tony says to Bruce. “I bet it's a little better than that hospital bed you've been in.”

The bed has a yellow quilt on it and lots of mismatched cushions. The couch in the lab had – still has, she guesses – a lot of cushions too; sometimes Bruce would lie down on it and put a cushion over his face when he was stressed. Jane would tell him to stop trying to smother himself.

Bruce sits down carefully and presses his hand into the quilt, then picks up one of the cushions and squeezes it.

“Yeah, those are yours, from your suite,” Tony says.

Bruce smiles. Tony smiles back a little, then nods his head towards the door.

“I, uh, I gotta do some work for a while, but we're going to have a welcome home dinner for you tonight, all your favourite food!” he says, then gestures to Susan to follow him out.

Jane sits down beside Bruce on the bed; the bed really is a hell of a lot more comfortable than the hospital beds and Bruce's quilt is soft underneath her fingers.

“Happy?” she asks him.

He hugs the cushion to his chest and nods.

“Good. I wonder if Tony brought any more of your stuff up here...”

They spent some time going through Bruce's things, including a copy of _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ with a bookmark placed roughly halfway through. He opens it and looks at a page, touches his fingers to the words and frowns, then drops it onto the bedspread.

“Wanna go snoop around the penthouse?” she asks.

At six fifteen, Tony starts making dinner, actually making it with his own two hands, he's quick to inform everyone. They're having roast lamb with mashed potatoes and gravy, which is apparently Bruce's favourite, although he's more interested in the bread sticks that Tony puts out on the table.

Pepper hurries in at seven thirty, bringing Thor with her. Jane left the apartment pretty early, while Thor was out for his morning run, so she hasn't even seen him since last night. He strides over to where her and Bruce are sitting on the couch, and leans down to kiss her.

“Hey,” she says, patting him on the shoulder.

“Good evening, my love,” he says, then nods to Bruce. “It is good to see you out of that hospital.”

Bruce looks up at Thor, unblinking, then looks away again and starts picking at his fingernails. Thor frowns at Jane and she shrugs. She wants to tell him that maybe Bruce remembers his 'child-like' crack, but now probably isn't the time.

“Dinner--” Tony announces from the door. “--is served!”

They sit down at the table, Jane and Thor on one side, Bruce and Susan on the other, and Tony and Pepper at either end. Tony hurriedly serves the food and all eyes are on Bruce. Tony heaps his plate with lamb and mashed potatoes and gravy, and Bruce stares down at it, eyes flickering between his plate and his cutlery. Susan leans over and places the fork in one of his hands and the knife in the other; his eyes flicker to her and he slowly grips the cutlery in his fist like he does with pens.

“This is a fine feast,” Thor says, breaking the silence. Bruce looks at him for a second, then away again.

“Yeah, this is _really_ good,” Pepper adds.

Tony glares back at her. “Well, don't say it like that!”

This would be the cue to laugh. Bruce always used to smile indulgently at Tony and Pepper's bickering and Jane would laugh along sometimes too; Thor was rarely present.

She watches Bruce as Tony and Pepper continue to bicker. He's trying to cut the lamb but having trouble with the way he's holding the knife; he doesn't have the usual dexterity and the lamb keeps sliding away from the knife, skidding across the gravy. Susan watches at him worriedly, and after a couple of failed attempts, she tries to lean over and cut the lamb for him. He flinches away and when she tries again, he jerks his arm back at her, shoving her away, and makes a sharp sound.

Pepper's eyebrows go up and Tony pulls a face. 

“You doing okay there, Bruce?”

Bruce's face is going bright red and he cringes away from Susan's attempts to comfort him.

Thor frowns. “Bruce?”

Bruce goes even redder, then bolts from the table, running out of the room.

“Uh...” Tony murmurs. “What happened?”

There's a series of thumps from the direction that Bruce went. Tony grimaces and starts to get up.

“I'll go,” Jane says quickly and grabs her crutch from where it's leaning against the table.

“Are you sure that's wise?” Thor asks.

“It's-- it'll be fine,” she says, and gets up. Her right shoulder protests at the pressure of the crutch but she grits her teeth against it and leaves the room.

She follows the sound of thumping, finding Bruce easily. He's outside a bathroom, banging his fists against the wall.

“Bruce? Bruce, come on, don't do that.” 

She's not quite dumb enough to grab hold of his arm like last time, but she reaches out and Bruce goes still, turning his head to look at her.

“Hey,” she says.

He purses his mouth, drops his hands to his sides, and turns towards her.

“Hey,” she repeats, and smiles.

He grimaces and gestures back the way they came.

“They're fine, don't worry about them,” she says, taking a step closer. Bruce stays still, so she comes chest to chest with him and puts her hand on his shoulder. She rubs the side of her thumb against his neck, feeling his pulse thumping wildly, and he relaxes a little, shoulders dropping. “You're fine,” she adds.

Bruce hums and puts his arms around her, and she lets her crutch drop to hug him back. “You're fine,” she repeats.

They come back to a silent table a couple of minutes later and Bruce keeps his eyes fixed on the ground. Jane cuts the lamb for him before going back to her seat; Bruce smiles at her but it fades when his gaze drifts to Thor.

“So,” Tony says, loud and a little high-pitched. “Anyone seen any good movies recently?”

-

David presents her with a cane one morning in physio.

She narrows her eyes as she looks at it. “I don't... want that.”

David sighs. “Yeah, I know that, but that shoulder pain you've been complaining about isn't going to go away until you stop using the crutch.”

“But I'll look like a...”

He tips his head to one side. “A what?”

She shrugs. “Fine, give me the damn cane.”

People look at her on the way back to the tower. She gets on the subway, and people look at her cane and look at her face and they frown and then they look away. It's only after a kid looks up from playing on his phone and hops up from his seat that she gets to sit down.

Thor doesn't like her taking the subway to and from the hospital, or anywhere else when she occasionally ventures out, and tries to get her to use Tony's chauffeur service, but it makes her feel like even more of a freak. Her every move is already shadowed by FBI agents; there's one sandy-haired guy that appears wherever she goes, with a bluetooth headset in. And that's just the one that she's spotted.

Anyway, Thor has gone back to Asgard for some kind of business trip or whatever. She didn't ask.

When she gets home, she heads up to the penthouse; JARVIS lets her in automatically and Tony waves at her from where he's sitting on the couch. He looks exhausted. Bruce has been home from the hospital for a week, and since Tony is technically unemployed, he's been the one taking on the brunt of the caretaking, and it shows.

“Hey. Where's Bruce?”

Tony nods towards the bedroom. “Sleeping, I think.” He pulls a face. “He didn't do much of it last night.”

“Yeah?”

Tony sighs and smiles thinly. “Oh yeah, he was up and down all night. Me and Pep didn't really get any sleep either.”

She nods. “Well, that... sucks,” she mutters. “Um... I can stay here if you want to go... sleep in the lab or something?”

Tony runs his fingers through his hair and yawns. “You know, I think I'm going to take you up on that offer, Foster. You going to be okay here?”

“Of course. I've got your entire kitchen to myself.”

Tony snorts and gets up from the couch. “Leave the box of chocolates in the top cupboard alone. Pep'll have my head if they're gone.”

She smiles. “We'll see.”

“Uh huh,” Tony mutters and heads towards the door. 

Jane sits down on the couch and puts her cane down on top of the glass coffee table. She leans back and stares at the ceiling for a few minutes, until she hears footsteps coming from behind her. She sits up again and looks over her shoulder as Bruce shuffles into the room.

“Hey,” she says.

He waves a little and comes over to the couch. He sits down beside her and tucks his hands between his legs.

“Were you awake this whole time?”

He shrugs.

“You didn't sleep much last night, huh?”

He shakes his head.

“Hungry?”

He nods.

“Okay, come on,” she says, and pulls herself up again. Bruce jumps up, and a wave of jealousy passes over her before she heads to the kitchen, Bruce at her heels.

“What do you want?” she asks, reaching for the fridge door, but Bruce shakes his head. He points to the kitchen table and she frowns. He widens his eyes and points at her, then again at the table.

“Oh, you want me to sit down?”

He nods. She's not sure it's really a good idea to let Bruce get the food, but she's not sure how to phrase that in a way that won't upset him, so she sits down. Bruce opens the fridge and roots around in it for a moment before pulling out a round tin. He shows her the half eaten pie inside with his eyebrows raised and she nods. She'd kind of like to know what's in it, but she knows it's useless to ask.

He grabs a couple of plates and two forks, and starts cutting the pie. He cuts the remaining half straight down the middle and dumps them out onto the plate, then brings the plates over to the table. That's a lot of pie.

“Are we allowed to eat this?” she asks as she digs her fork in; it's apple.

Bruce shrugs and starts eating.

They eat in silence, unsurprisingly; filling the room with one-sided chatter seems weird and a little bit insulting to Bruce, so she just munches on the apple pie quietly until they're both finished, at which point Bruce drops his fork onto his plate with a clatter and reaches over to take hers.

“Oh, I can do that,” she says, and tries to take the plate back but he shakes his head, picks up both plates, and gets up. He walks over to the dishwasher and opens it, puts everything inside, then closes it and leans down to scrutinise the buttons. Jane bites her lip as she watches, wondering if it's worth going over there and turning it on herself.

Then the machine switches itself on and Bruce starts a little. Maybe she's psychic.

He stands up and looks at the ceiling with a scowl. So, she's not psychic but maybe JARVIS is.

“Hey, do you want to watch a movie?” she asks.

He scowls for a moment longer, then looks at her and nods. She reaches for her cane and he comes back over to her and hovers anxiously as she gets up.

“Okay,” she says, and smiles brilliantly at him. “Let's check out what's on at the Stark Cinema.”

They go back to the living room and Jane picks up the remote and sits down. “What do you want to watch? A comedy?”

He nods.

“Okay...” she murmurs. Figuring out _which_ comedy is going to be a long process.

“If I may, Doctor Foster,” JARVIS says, “by my estimation, _The Goonies_ is Doctor Banner's favourite comedy.”

Bruce smiles and nods.

“A fan of the classics, huh?” she says. “Okay, let's watch that.”

It's nice to hear Bruce laugh, the last few months it's either been silence or angry noises, but Bruce really laughs at the movie. They sit side by side, thighs pressed together, and Bruce glances at her every now and then, his cheeks slightly pink. When the movie is over, the room goes back to silence and Bruce starts fiddling with his hands.

“So...”

He taps her on the shoulder and makes a downward gesture beside his head.

She grimaces. “Uh...”

He reaches over and touches her hair.

“My hair?”

He shakes his head and huffs, then screws up his face and waves his fist up and down.

“Um...”

“If I may,” JARVIS interrupts, “I believe Doctor Banner is referring to Master Thor.”

“Oh! That was a hammer!” she says. Bruce shifts a little and glances away. “Er, sorry,” she adds. “So, you wanna know... where he is?”

Bruce still seems a little embarrassed, but he nods anyway.

“He went to Asgard for a while, his dad needed him for some kind of political wrangling or whatever. He said he didn't know when he'd be back.”

Bruce nods slowly, then leans over her, picks up the remote and gives it to her.

“You want me to choose another movie?”

He nods again and settles back against the couch.

They watch movies until eight, when Tony and Pepper come home. They're both kind of distant as they come in and putter around the living room, and Bruce watches them without making a move to say-- wave hello.

“Awkward,” Jane says under her breath, and Bruce looks at her and smiles a little. Tony and Pepper disappear into the back, talking quietly.

“Is everything going okay here?” she asks Bruce. “Are they treating you okay?”

He shrugs.

“Are they--” She swallows. “Are they treating you badly?”

His eyebrows pull together and he shakes his head, then points to himself, clenches his fists and shakes them a little.

“You're angry? You make them angry?”

He holds up two fingers.

“You make them angry,” she says, and he nods. Man, she's going to have to bone up on her charades skills. “How... angry? Very angry?”

He shakes his head.

“A little angry? Pissed off?”

He nods and pulls a face.

“Well... they're probably not used to living with another person...” she says, trailing off as she hears how lame that sounds. 

Bruce smiles.

“Hey, Foster,” Tony calls as he and Pepper come back into the room, “you want to stay for dinner? We've got apple pie for dessert.”

“Er...” She glances at Bruce, who screws up his face and smiles. “Not any more, you don't.”

-

A couple of days later, Bruce has a doctor's appointment and Jane wasn't planning on coming with him and Tony, but when she comes by in the morning, Bruce grabs hold of her wrist and tugs insistently.

“You're welcome to tag along,” Tony says.

Their first stop is the Imaging Department for a CT scan. Bruce fidgets even more than normal, pulling at his fingers and twitching them as if he's typing, squirming in his seat as they wait for his appointment.

“Hey.” She reaches over and covers one of his hands with her own. “It's okay, CT scans don't hurt.”

He nods quickly and sucks his bottom lip into his mouth. She squeezes his hand and he turns it over to press his palm to hers and curl his fingers around hers. A few minutes later, a nurse calls for Bruce to come in and change into a gown. He kind of pulls on Jane's hand and the nurse shakes her head.

“Your girlfriend will have to stay out here, I'm afraid,” the nurse says. Bruce opens and closes his mouth, then smiles a little and gets up, letting go of her hand. Tony takes up Bruce's vacated seat once he's gone into one of the rooms with the nurse, and raises his eyebrows. She shrugs.

“So, how's it going so far, with Bruce?” she asks.

Tony makes a vague gesture and sighs. “Yeah, it's okay.”

“Yeah?” It's still on her mind, what Bruce told her about pissing them off. She likes Tony, and Pepper, but they're not exactly qualified carers and with Bruce unable to communicate properly...

“Well...” Tony shrugs a shoulder. “Bruce is kind of an asshole, has been for as long as I've known him. So, he keeps us up at night a lot, either he can't sleep or he is sleeping but he's yelling in his sleep.”

“He yells?”

“Yeah, incoherently. Cries too. And he gets agitated when I have to do something for him, like read his mail to him.”

“He cries? Is he okay?”

Tony tilts his head to one side and raises his eyebrows. “Well, he has a bullet lodged in his brain, so probably not, no.”

She looks at him and frowns. “The... the bullet's still in his brain?”

“Yeah... Didn't Susan tell you?”

“No. I guess... I guess there wasn't any reason to.” She leans back in her chair and grimaces. “God, that's weird. Isn't that... going to cause problems?”

“Probably, but they said that removing it would give him 0% chance at survival instead 000.1%.” He shrugs. “I guess they did something right.”

“Yeah...” she murmurs. 

They fall into silence; Tony looks at his phone and Jane closes her eyes and leans her head against the wall. She can't imagine what it would be like to have a bullet stuck in her head, to know that it's lurking there like an unexploded bomb. To know that someone pressed a gun to her head and taunted her and pulled--

She starts in her seat and opens her eyes.

“You okay?” Tony asks.

“Um.” She shakes herself and swallows. “Yep. Fine.”

Tony squints at her a little. “Okay...”

The door that Bruce went through with the nurse earlier opens again and they both come back out. Tony stands up and Jane follows slowly.

“Did it go okay?” he asks Bruce. Bruce nods and walks back over to them to stand beside Jane. Tony raises his eyebrows and looks back at the nurse. “So, we'll be getting the results soon?”

The nurse narrows her eyes a little. “The neurologist will be down in about twenty minutes to interpret the scan. If you come back in an hour, you should be able to speak to him. The cafeteria is two floors down.”

“Okay, we'll be back at...” He checks his phone. “One forty five.”

The nurse nods and smiles, but the smile doesn't reach her eyes. “We'll see you then, Mr Stark,” she says.

Bruce looks at Jane and raises his eyebrows.

“Uh, she didn't seem to like you all that much, Tony,” Jane says, once the nurse has left the waiting area again.

“Mm, well, I called up the department a couple of days ago and made it clear that I expected Bruce's results back the same day. There was some uncouth discussion of money and who gives it to who.”

“Right,” Jane says. “Okay. So, are we going to the cafeteria?”

Bruce pulls a face.

“Oh, I think we can do better than _that_ ,” Tony says. “There's a Starbucks nearby. Let's get some disgustingly expensive coffee, instead of just plain disgusting.”

Starbucks is busy with the lunch rush when they get there, and Bruce seems to become smaller almost in the blink of an eye. It's noisy and crowded and people push past them as they stand in the doorway. Bruce cringes away.

Tony grimaces. “Shit. Uh...”

Jane looks back out the door. “There are tables outside. Um, get me a regular coffee and get Bruce a... one of those cookies and cream things.” She remembers him drinking one once in the lab, and letting her finish it because she was hungry.

“Okay. One coffee and a cookie thing. Got it.”

“And some kind of muffin,” she adds, and takes Bruce by the arm, leading him back out. She leads him over to a table with three chairs and sits him down in one, then drops into the seat beside him. She leans her cane against the table and looks at Bruce.

He's hunched over in his seat, covering his face with his hands, breathing heavily.

“Bruce?”

His shoulders twitch a little.

“That's the first time you've been in somewhere crowded like that, isn't it?” she asks, and lays her hand on his arm. His muscles feel all tensed up, but he doesn't pull away. “It's okay, we're outside now.”

He breathes heavily and loudly for another minute before dropping his hands inch by inch. He looks over at her with big eyes and she smiles back.

“You're okay,” she says, and rubs his arm.

He squeezes his eyes shut and rubs at his face, then sighs.

“Okay?”

He nods and smiles a little tremulously. She pats his arm and jerks her head towards where Sandy Man is standing, looking at his phone.

“If it makes you feel any better, we've got an FBI babysitter.”

Bruce frowns and looks in the direction she indicated. 

She drops her hand to his and pats it. “Don't stare, okay, he thinks he's very sneaky.”

Bruce turns back to her and smiles a little as Tony comes back with the drinks.

“Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't think...” Tony gestures back inside and pulls a face. “You okay?”

Bruce shrugs and takes his drink out of Tony's hand. Tony narrows his eyes a little and hands Jane her coffee and the muffin.

“I got blueberry,” he says, and sits down.

“Thanks,” she says, and pushes it over to Bruce. He smiles, pulls the muffin out, and starts picking at it, pulling off pieces and eating them. He always does that with baked goods; she used to tease him about it, he was like a bird picking at breadcrumbs.

“We've got about forty five minutes till the appointment,” Tony says.

Bruce nods and Jane says okay, and then they all lapse into silence. Bruce alternates between the muffin and the drink, and Jane sips on her coffee while Tony checks his phone. A little distance from the table, there's a group of four girls talking among themselves and pointing over to the table – or, more specifically, Tony. Jane hopes that they might be too shy to come over, and for a few minutes that seems to be the case, but then they start shuffling over as a unit.

“Uh, are you, uh...” one of the girls starts.

Tony looks around and smiles. “Nah, I only play him on TV.”

They all laugh nervously. “Can we get your autograph?”

Bruce seems to curl in one himself as he pulls a face at Tony's schmoozing. The two of them go unnoticed for a few minutes, until one of the girls looks over and says, 'hey, aren't you...?'

Bruce shakes his head and sinks lower into his seat.

“Hey, anyone want a picture?” Tony says loudly.

They begin the walk back to the hospital half an hour later, after Tony has finally got rid of all his fans. They're directed by a nurse to the doctor's office, and amazingly only have to wait a few minutes to be seen. Jane suspects that Tony has a hand in this.

“Do you want to go in on your own?” Tony asks Bruce.

Bruce shakes his head.

“Do you want both of us to come in?”

He nods.

Tony glances at Jane for a moment. “All right, well, let's go in.”

The doctor is a neurologist, an old guy with a gaze that doesn't quite seem to rest on any of them who introduces himself as Dr Garfield. He's not the same neurologist that Bruce has been seeing for the past few months, because apparently that guy has gone on holiday.

“Okay, Mr Banner...”

“Doctor,” Jane says.

Garfield blinks at her. “Yes?”

“No,” she says, “Bruce is a doctor of nuclear physics.”

“Ah,” Garfield says. “Well, Dr Banner, nothing unexpected came up on your CT. The bullet hasn't migrated, and the surrounding tissue is no longer swollen. Now, I see from Dr Rand's notes that you're suffering from expressive aphasia, and according to your speech therapist, you haven't been able to speak at all.”

Bruce nods, blank-faced.

“Okay. Well, aphasia is certainly a difficult condition to work through, but by this point in your recovery we would expect to see some speech. Generally patients can speak a few words, though reading and writing takes a lot longer to recover.”

Bruce shrugs.

Garfield frowns and returns to his notes. “Your aunt... Susan... She told Dr Rand that you went through a period of selective mutism as a child. Obviously this is something that you would discuss with a psychiatrist, but part of your aphasia may be psychological.”

Bruce blinks, and Jane notices that his face is starting to go red.

“So, uh, what's your advice, doc?” Tony says.

“Well, Dr Banner needs to increase his speech therapy appointments and I'm also going to refer him to a psychiatrist.”

“That's it?”

Garfield nods. “Considering that the aphasia appears to be Dr Banner's most pressing problem at the moment, his best option is to work more closely with his speech therapist.”

Bruce has gone really red now, as Tony and the doctor continue to discuss him in the third person, and Jane notices that he's digging his fingers really hard into his leg.

“His recovery to this point really nothing short of miraculous, but we have a way to go yet,” the doctor continues.

Bruce full-body twitches and then is up and out of his seat and already out the door when Jane grabs her cane.

“Apparently this appointment is over,” Tony says, his eyebrows drawn together.

Jane pulls herself up and hurries out the door after Bruce, finding him in time to see him punch a wall. And then punch it again, and a third time.

“Bruce...” she murmurs.

He looks over at her, eyes wide, and drops his hand, turning around to press his back against the wall, which he happens to have put a dent in. He hunches forward, buries his face in his hands, and screams a little.

“It's okay...” she says and carefully comes to stand beside him. She lays her hand gently on his shoulder and squeezes. “It's all right.”

He tips sideways and presses his cheek against her side, still covering his face. Tony steps out of the office with the doctor and looks at her with raised eyebrows and curt nod of his head to Bruce. She shrugs and rubs her palm over Bruce's back.

She bends as much as she can and curls her fingers gently around Bruce's shoulder. “Hey, let's go home, okay?” she says quietly.

He answers in a kind of whining hum and balls his hands to fists against his face.

“Come on,” she urges.

He nods quickly and straightens up again. His face is red and damp, and his knuckles are red as well, for a different reason. There's no blood, though, just inflamed skin. He wipes his hands over his face and makes an unsure noise, looking first at Jane, then at Tony, but pointedly ignoring the doctor.

“Let's get you home, buddy,” Tony says, and strides forward. He throws his arm around Bruce's shoulders, which only draws a slight cringe from Bruce.

They drive back in relative silence, and Bruce seems to have completely zoned out by the time they get back to the tower. Tony has to help him out of the car and guide him up to the penthouse and into his bedroom. He curls up on the bed without a backward glance.

Tony sighs and closes the door.

“Did the doctor say anything else?” she asks.

“Just to keep him calm and stuff.”

“Well, that's unhelpful,” she says.

Tony pinches the bridge of his nose and smiles. “Yep. But thanks for coming, I think that helped.”

“No problem.” They lapse into silence for a minute, both listening for signs of activity in Bruce's bedroom, but it seems that he is well and truly out for the count.

“Well,” she says, “I'm gonna go. Unless you need any help?”

Tony shakes his head and smiles. “Nah, I'm good. Gonna get my drink on and wait for Pepper to get home.”

“Sounds about right,” she says.

She goes back to her apartment and finds her mother on the couch, typing on her laptop furiously and muttering under her breath.

“Hey,” Jane says as she gets through the door. She leans her weight on her good leg and pushes the door closed with her cane.

“Hello,” Mom calls back, and turns to look at her. “Oh, sit down, sweetheart, you look worn out.”

Jane rubs her hand over her face and considers arguing; pointless arguing like when she insisted she had room for another helping of dessert as a child, only to throw it back up later. Her father would be concerned while her mother gloated.

“Yeah,” she murmurs, and makes her slow way to the couch to sit down beside her mom. She leans her head back against the couch and sighs. God, she is tired.

“Are you okay?”

She sighs. “Yeah... Just had kind of a stressful day.”

“What happened?”

“Oh...” She rubs her eyes and opens them. “I went with Bruce and Tony to Bruce's doctor appointment, and he had kind of a bad reaction.”

Mom's eyebrows go up. “What kind of bad reaction?”

“He just got... upset. The doctor was talking about his aphasia and how he needed to work harder at regaining his speech and... Bruce got pretty agitated about it.”

“Mm,” her mother hums.

Jane knows that hum. “What?”

“It's just...” She shakes her head. “Brain injuries can be very difficult to recover from. Even minor ones, and Bruce's certainly wasn't minor.”

“Yeah, I know, and he knows too. He's doing the best he can.”

Mom purses her mouth a little. “I'm not saying he isn't, I just think that it's important to keep in mind that he likely won't ever recover fully. People with aphasia generally regain some usable language but very little reading and writing. He may never be able to read and write again to any significant degree. Not to mention the emotional side effects.”

“I _know_ , Mom.”

Mom looks at her with her eyebrows slightly furrowed. “He might need a carer for the rest of his life.”

“Well...” She shrugs. “We'll get to that when we get to that.” Her eyes drift to her mother's computer screen, where she's composing an email, the first line of which reads, _I'm sorry that my compassionate leave is lasting longer than is convenient._

“What's that?” she asks, nodding to the screen.

Mom keeps frowning for a second, before looking back at the computer. “Oh, just something for my boss.”

“She wants you back at the hospital?”

“She does, but I've been there years and I hardly ever take time off for any reason, and you remember Brenda? She's already been on two holidays this year...”

“You should go,” Jane says.

“What?”

“You've been off for like, four months. I know it's compassionate leave, but I'm okay now and I know you don't want to lose your job.”

Mom frowns. “You're okay?”

“I'm...” Jane lifts a shoulder. “I'm okay enough and, you know, I have... Thor.”

“Who isn't here.”

“He'll be back soon.”

“Well...” Mom frowns, clearly unconvinced, and Jane realises that she is just too tired to have this conversation right now.

“Just think about it. I'm going to have something to eat, then head to bed.”

“All right,” Mom says. “There's some leftover lasagne in the fridge.”

Jane's stomach roils at the thought, but she thanks her mom anyway.

-

It's takes a week of convincing to get her mother to go back to London, but Jane finally manages and finds herself alone for the first time in nearly five months. She cleans and tidies and rearranges, and watches TV late into the night for the first few days. She also barely goes out, preferring to stay at home in her pyjamas and watch reruns of _Pawn Stars_. She doesn't think this is what David has in mind for her recovery.

The only things she does do regularly are go to her therapy appointments and visit Bruce. Physio's getting better, her leg doesn't give her nearly as much grief as it used to, and her hysterectomy scar is almost completely healed and not giving her stabbing pains any more. Bending down is still a dicey prospect and she rarely looks at herself in the mirror without a t-shirt on, but she'll take what she can get.

She goes up to the penthouse a week and a half after her mother leaves and steps out of the elevator to hears the tail end of a fight. Or, rather, Tony shouting at Bruce and then a door slamming.

“Fuck!” Tony snaps, and stomps back into the living room.

“Uh, hi,” she says.

He looks at her for a second, then squeezes his eyes shut. “Great.”

“Do you... want me to go?”

Tony scrubs his hands over his face and sighs. “No, it's... fine. Sorry, we're having a bad morning.”

“What happened?”

Tony throws up his hands. “Oh, I don't know, some kind of tantrum. It's like living with an overgrown toddler sometimes.”

Jane frowns. That doesn't sound like Bruce at all. “Can I go and... talk to him?”

Tony shrugs. “Knock yourself out,” he says, and heads towards the liquor cabinet.

“Okay...” she murmurs, and goes down the hallway to Bruce's room. She knocks on the door and calls through the door. “Bruce, it's me, I'm going to come in, okay?”

She opens the door and pokes her head in. Bruce is sitting on the bed with his knees drawn up to his chest and his forehead pressed against his knees. There are piles of clothes on the floor, along with a pillow and a blanket. There's also a dent in the wall.

“Bruce?” she says softly. He doesn't react.

She comes into the room and sits down beside him carefully. “Hey,” she says, and tentatively puts her arm around him. He sighs and leans his weight against her. “Are you okay?”

He shrugs.

“Okay, well...” She rubs his back and leans forward. “Hey, will you look at me?”

He raises his head slowly and looks at her, pouting slightly.

“Hey,” she says, and smiles. “Do you want to go out? I think you need to get out of here for a while.”

He shrugs again.

“Okay. Put some socks on and come on.”

He frowns.

“Go on,” she insists, and gets up.

He sighs, but gets up and she hurries him along by tapping her cane on the hard floor and occasionally knocking it against his leg gently. He laughs and swats it away.

“Chop chop,” she says, and laughs a little. Her grandmother always used to say that, chasing Jane into bed when Jane wanted to keep stargazing.

Bruce eventually gets a pair of socks on – mismatched but Jane can't judge – and she gets him out the door and into the living room. Tony is lying on the couch, but he pulls himself up when he sees them.

“Hey,” he says, drawing out the word. “You feeling better?”

Bruce shrugs, the set of his shoulders tense.

“Me and Bruce are going to go out for a while,” she says.

“Is that-” Tony frowns. “I don't think that's a good idea.”

Bruce huffs.

“We're going out,” she repeats. “Why don't you go have lunch with Pepper, or something? We're not going to go far, we just need a change of scenery.”

Tony purses his mouth. “Well... Okay. You gonna be warm enough?”

Bruce rolls his eyes and Tony smiles.

“No, but I actually mean it, take a sweater,” he says, and grabs a hoodie that's hanging over the back of a chair. “Take this.”

Bruce screws up his face, but takes it and sighs.

“Come on,” Jane says and lays her hand on his back, guiding him to the door. “See you later, Tony.”

“Be back for dinner!” Tony calls back.

-

Bruce remains withdrawn as they leave the Tower and start walking down the street. There are people all around them, as there always is in New York, and Bruce flinches every time he gets knocked by someone. Perhaps going out wasn't such a good idea, Tony certainly didn't seem to think it was.

“Bruce?” she asks, and he looks at her as he cringes away from people. “Will you switch sides with me?”

He frowns, but does as she asks, so that her cane is on the outside of the two of them and not in between them. She takes a step closer and threads her arm through his, and Bruce's eyebrows go up.

“It was all part of my sneaky plan,” she says. Bruce smiles and only flinches a little bit when someone brushes past him. 

She decides that Central Park is best place for them to go, since at least there's some chance of being reasonably alone. They walk around the perimeter of the reservoir, and Bruce spends most of it looking out at the water. There are a bunch of ducks and geese swimming around and Bruce smiles when one of them puts their head into the water and goes ass up.

After half an hour of slow strolling they pass an ice cream cart. Bruce points at it and looks at her with his eyebrows raised.

“I don't know, you'll ruin your appetite.”

Bruce rolls his eyes and makes a jerking off motion with his hand.

“Bruce!” she says, laughing. He grins back.

She has to read out the ice cream flavours to him twice, once to tell him the options and the second time for him to choose. She tries to do this as quietly as she can, but they still get a couple of strange looks. Thankfully, Bruce seems oblivious to it.

They settle on Rocky Road with chocolate sauce for him, and boring old vanilla for her. Bruce gets it in a cup and Jane goes for a cone because she can't eat with a spoon while holding a cane. They continue on their walk around the reservoir, Jane licking her one sad scoop of vanilla while Bruce makes kind of a mess with his Rocky Road. He gets some of it on Tony's sweater, but she figures since it's dark coloured already it doesn't really matter. She'll probably be able to convince him to clean his face with a tissue after he's finished.

Five minutes later, Bruce is halfway through his ice cream and she's barely made a dent in hers; most of it is melting its way down the cone now. Pathetic.

A guy on a bike zooms past her and she jumps and considers smacking his back wheel with her cane but thinks better of it. When she goes for another lick of her ice cream, she finds that it's no longer there.

“Ah, shit,” she mutters, looking down at the splodge of ice cream on the sidewalk. 

Bruce frowns and points back towards the ice cream cart.

“Nah, it's fine,” she says. What a waste of two dollars; at least the ants are going to be happy.

Bruce holds out his cup.

“Huh? Oh no, finish your ice cream, it's okay.”

Bruce shakes the cup insistently and mimes gagging.

“You... feel sick?”

He nods, and pushes the cup into her hand. She picks up the spoon and tastes a little. It sure is better than plain vanilla, and Bruce got three scoops, so there's still plenty left.

“Thanks,” she says.

He smiles and wipes his ice cream off his face and onto his sweater sleeve. Well, that's one way of doing it.

“Do you really feel sick or are you just pretending to make me take this?”

Bruce shrugs, points to his mouth, and throws up his hands.

“Hm...” she murmurs, narrowing her eyes. “It's very convenient that you can't speak.”

Bruce widens his eyes and smiles, then points to a nearby bench.

“Good thinking,” she says. 

Bruce puts a finger to his temple and rolls his eyes. Jane's stomach gurgles a little.

“Don't do that,” she says quietly.

His eyes go wide and he nods.

They sit down on the bench and she eats the ice cream while Bruce watches people walk past. He seems calmer now, and fiddles with his hands quietly, rubbing his thumb against his palm and pulling at his fingers. When a dog runs up to them, wagging its tail like a windmill, Bruce grins and starts petting it, scratching behind its ears and making a fuss of it until the owner calls it back. He looks lit up by the encounter, smiling from ear to ear.

They continue on their walk a few minutes later, and the switch from sitting to standing makes her hip ache a little, but she keeps walking until they pass a public toilet.

“Oh uh.” She stops and looks at Bruce. “I need to... pee. Are you going to be okay if I...?”

He nods, but she still isn't sure that it's a good idea. She's not sure that he's ever been left alone outside since the shooting, but her bladder's starting get insistent. Sandy Man isn't too far away from them.

“Um, okay, just stay right out here, don't walk off...”

Bruce glares at her and she swallows.

“Okay, sorry. Uh... okay, I'll be back in a minute.”

There's a line for the stalls which moves at a glacial pace, and she doesn't get into a stall for a good five minutes. She doesn't bother to wait for the disabled stall and just makes do with the tiny space she's got. She pees as quick as she can and hurries to the sink, but it still takes about ten minutes all in, and she starts having terrible visions of Bruce being harassed or called names or... or _something_ , but when she comes back out he's still leaning against the wall, looking ahead blankly. When he sees her, he widens his eyes and spreads his arms as if he's saying, 'see, still in one piece'.

“Okay, smartass, come on” she says. Bruce laughs.

The ache in her hip from before starts to get worse. She tries to ignore it and keep going, but that clever plan only works for a few minutes before her hip gives out altogether and she stumbles to one side. Bruce grabs her, winding his arm around her back and looks at her with his eyebrows creeping into his hairline.

“I'm fine,” she says. She tests her weight on her bad leg and hisses.

He frowns deeply and makes a humming sound, then grips her a little harder. She sighs and moves her hand to his other shoulder to keep her balance.

“Well... maybe we could get a taxi home.”

-

When they get back to the tower, JARVIS suggests that they go up to Tony's workshop, where Tony is currently tinkering on a new suit. Bruce shrugs his acceptance of this and helps her into the elevator.

“Hey!” Tony calls when they get into the workshop, and pushes back his goggles. “Have fun?”

Tony has his Iron Man specs up holographically and he passes through them like a ghost walking through a wall. Bruce helps her into a chair, then stares at the hologram.

“Yeah, we went to Central Park and had ice cream,” she says. 

“Hm... Yeah, I can see that,” Tony says, and points to Bruce. “On my sweater, Bruce? Really?”

Bruce shrugs and walks over to look closer at the hologram.

“Uh huh,” Tony says, turning to look at him as he passes by. “Well, I'm just working on some stuff, I don't know what you guys want to do...”

“I don't...” Jane starts, then trails off as Bruce touches the hologram. He 'picks up' one of the repulsor engines that go in the feet of the suit and starts manipulating it, adding and removing parts. Tony watches with his head tipped to one side for a minute before his eyes go wide.

“Shit, you're right! You're right!”

Jane sits forward. “What's he right about?”

“He just totally fixed my thruster problem!” Tony says, and slaps Bruce on the back. “You totally fixed the problem!”

Bruce smiles and shrugs.

“Wow. Wow. Okay.” Tony runs his fingers through his hair and looks at Bruce, then back at Jane. “You know...” Tony taps his fingers against his chin and looks at the two of them speculatively. “The renewable energy project has completely stalled since you guys have been off it. I've got all the files, do you wanna...?”

Jane hasn't been back into the lab at all since the shooting, hasn't made it to the door, and Tony hasn't asked her. She's on extended paid sick leave, which Pepper has assured her is an actual policy of theirs and not just created for her benefit. She looks at her old research sometimes, but going in there and working isn't something she's even considered doing. But it's not the research, she guesses, it's the location.

Bruce nods at Tony, and Jane lifts a shoulder. “Sure.”

Tony sets up a virtual workspace for them and Jane switches from the couch to an office chair to wheel herself around. It's a bit more fun than her time in the wheelchair.

Bruce is in his element among their virtual stacks of research. Last time they were working at this, Bruce was trying to incorporate gamma radiation into the clean water project to kill bacteria in contaminated water. 'Something good comes out of everything,' he said. The arc reactor stuff wasn't really Jane's area, although she could follow it, but radiation from space? That was her thing and she was toying with the idea of asking him to co-author a paper with her, although she knew that any kind of fame, even within the circles of nuclear- and astro- physics academia, was not something he'd relish, not any more.

Jane has to deal with all the written notes, but Bruce works the components with ease, breaking down the gamma to its atoms. They throw the work back and forth, and they fall into such a rhythm that Jane doesn't realise that hours have passed until Tony approaches them and starts looking over their work.

“Shit,” he says, “you guys have just advanced this project by three months, those morons I'm employing couldn't get to grips with it at all.”

“Well... I guess our work was a little impenetrable,” Jane says.

“This is really, _really_ amazing,” Tony continues. “And Bruce... You know, I lean more to the side of visual learning, I can definitely create a program for you. Honestly, I don't know why I didn't think of it before. It's just... it's so obvious!”

“Yeah.”

The room goes silent for a moment. Tony's mouth snaps closed and Jane looks at Bruce.

“What?” she says.

Bruce glances between the two of them and clears his throat. “Yeah,” he repeats. “J...uh... J-J... ane.” 

His voice sounds strange and slurred, and but it's the best goddamn sound she's ever heard. She's up and out of her chair in an instant, despite her leg, and throws her arms around him. He makes a humming sound and wraps his arms around her shoulders. She rests her forehead on his chest and breathes out, and Bruce rubs his palms up and down her back. Her eyes start to warm and she squeezes them shut and takes a deep breath.

“Well,” Tony says, kind of loud. 

Jane takes another breath and steps back. Bruce smiles at her and pushes some hair from her face.

“Celebratory dinner tonight, no arguments!” Tony adds.

Jane wipes at her eyes quickly and turns to look at him. “Yeah, sounds good.”

-

Names are easier for Bruce to get a handle on, so they spend time everyday working on that, between using the holograms and taking short walks around New York. Bruce's speech therapist is very clear that he has to work on it consistently but when Tony tries to help him, Bruce's favourite word becomes 'no'. No, no, no to everything when it comes to Tony. Tony invariably storms off, muttering under his breath.

With Jane, he sulks a bit, but he'll work with her.

“Can you tell me the names of all the Avengers?” she asks.

Bruce sighs. “To-nee, Hulk, uh, Clint, Steve, N-n...” He screws up his face and rubs at his nose. He always stumbles over Natasha, her name's too long and has too many sharp sounds. “A-asha. No... Ngh.. tasha.”

Jane grins. “Awesome! Keep going.”

He looks at her and shrugs. 

She pokes him on the leg. “You're forgetting someone.”

“Oh,” he says. “Uh... Ff...”

“ _Th_ ,” she interjects.

He glances at her. “Th... Th... orr.”

“Yes! You're doing great!”

Bruce rolls his eyes and falls back against the couch. “Sucks,” he says, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes.

She rubs his shoulder and sighs. He's doing amazingly and every word he says makes her absurdly excited, her enthusiasm isn't faked, but she can see how it would feel like a hollow victory. Bruce drags his fingers over his face and groans.

“All right, I won't torture you. You wanna watch TV?”

He nods and she turns the TV on. They watch a couple of hours of reruns until Tony returns, talking to someone just out of view. Bruce tenses up as they both watch Tony walk in with... Steve. Bruce hums unhappily and sinks down into the couch, putting his feet on the edge of the glass coffee table.

“We've got a visitor,” Tony says.

“Doctors,” Steve says. Jane grabs her cane and starts pulling herself. “Oh, don't get up, it's okay...”

“I'm up,” she says, and feels Bruce get up and hover behind her. “Hello, Captain.”

“Oh, call me Steve,” he says. They've only met once before because he's rarely in New York these days, preferring to go on his 'road trip of misery' following his assassin best friend around America, as Tony put it. She's not sure what it means that he's back in town now. He looks at Bruce and smiles. “Hey, Bruce.”

“Mm,” Bruce mumbles.

“I, uh, I hear that you're doing pretty good now. I'm sorry I didn't come by and visit earlier.”

“Yeah,” he says.

“He's doing great,” Tony says. “Really, really great. Kicking aphasia's ass all over the place.”

Jane glances back at Bruce with a smile, but his face is going starting to go red and his eyes are downcast.

“Well, that's...” Steve's brow scrunches for a moment for he smiles. “That's really good. Uh, so, how are you, Dr Foster?” His gaze drops to the cane for a second before jumping back to her face.

“Jane,” she says. “And I'm good, I'm walking. It's good.”

“I'm glad,” Steve says. “I actually thought I might see Thor, but Tony says he's not around?”

“Yeah, he went off to do some kind of political thing. I don't know, I didn't ask.”

Steve nods, brow scrunching again. “I guess I'll catch him next time.”

“I'm sure he'll be happy to see you,” she says.

Steve nods again and smiles, and then they all lapse into silence for a minute. Tony clicks his tongue.

“Well, me and Steve have got to go do some things, but we'll be done in a few hours. I'll have to ask Pep, but we could have dinner later.” He quirks an eyebrow at Steve. “If you can stay in one place for more than an hour.”

Steve snorts. “I guess I could try.”

“Okay, well.” Tony claps his hands together. “Be good, kids, me and Uncle Steve are going to head out.”

“Yeah, okay,” she says. Tony and Steve go back out the door with a couple of waves, and she turns back to Bruce. His face is very red. “Hey, Bruce, are you...?” she says, and starts to reach for her arm.

“Ngh,” he says, cringing and pulling away from her outstretched hand.

“Okay,” she says softly. “Okay, do you want to sit down?”

He grunts and sits back down on the couch. She sits down beside him carefully. “What's wrong?”

He gestures roughly at the door. “Sss...” he says, and shakes his head. “St... ahhh... Steve.”

“What about Steve?”

He gestures to the door, spluttering a little, then back at himself. “St... St... a... an' me, Huh, Hulk, uhn.” He bangs his hands against his head, dislodging his glasses and hunching over. She grabs hold of his arm without thinking and tugs at it.

“Come on, don't do that.”

He growls into his hands and squirms against her but doesn't pull away entirely.

“Look, I don't... I don't understand what you're saying...”

He grunts and rubs viciously at his face for a moment. “St... eve, se...” He squeezes his eyes shut and repeats the sounds under his breath for a second. “Se...rah-rum. Me, se...rum.” He looks at her with big eyes that beg her to understand him.

“Okay,” she says. “Um... Steve was given the serum that made him a super soldier and... you... got the serum and became Hulk...”

Bruce nods and gestures to his mouth.

“And now you can't speak, and he's still... super and it's-- you're embarrassed?”

He bangs his fist against his head, hard enough that she can hear the impact.

“Hey, hey, hey,” she says, and grabs his fist. She wraps both her hands around it and pulls it into her lap. He unclenches his fist slowly and curls his fingers around her palm. “Don't do that. Look... I know you feel embarrassed, and I know you don't like... seeing other people, but no one's judging you. And I know that maybe you... feel like we treat you like a baby...”

He takes a breath and shakes his head. “N-n... no you.”

“Okay,” she says, and smiles. She lifts her other hand and runs it through his hair, settling on the back of his neck. “I'm glad. But, you know, even with Tony, he just doesn't know how to act around you any more. And... he's an asshole anyway.”

Bruce nods, his gaze going kind of distant. He leans into her, eyes dropping to her mouth, eyebrows raising slightly, but somehow none of that clicks until he opens his mouth a little.

She pulls away quickly and Bruce cringes back. “Oh, um, no,” she says, and pulls her hands away too. “I-uh. Sorry, I didn't mean to...”

“Ngh,” he mumbles and shakes his head. He curls into himself and covers his face with his hands.

“I didn't mean to give you the wrong signal...” she finishes awkwardly.

He grunts again and kicks at the coffee table. There are a few things on it, including her laptop and her phone, and everything shudders. Bruce kicks at it again and her phone skitters across the surface.

“Don't-” she murmurs and he growls. She swallows and takes a shallow breath. “Bruce...”

He stands up abruptly and gives the table a hard kick. Her phone shoots off the table and slides halfway across the room and her laptop tips over and slams back down.

“Bruce!” If she could, she'd get off the couch and run to the door. She's had to do that once before with Bruce, when he got some bad news and started freaking out in the lab. Everyone else fled and she ran to the door and watched him huff and puff. He hunched over as his shirt strained around his muscles, staying like that for a few minutes before calming down. He looked so sheepish afterwards, it made her laugh.

But her cane isn't within reaching distance, and even if it was she wouldn't be able to move that fast, not fast enough to clear the living room before Bruce flips the table and the glass shatters and her laptop goes with it. 

Well, it's a good thing she backed up all her work, she thinks. 

Bruce drops to his knees and presses his forehead against the ground, whining high-pitched like a hurt animal. She watches him growl and whine, her breath comes in short, sharp bursts. She tries to locate her cane, but it's rolled quite a distance in the chaos. 

Bruce bangs his hands against the floor – there's glass all around him, she doesn't want him to cut himself – and screams. His t-shirt isn't straining though and since he's wearing a short-sleeved t-shirt, she can see that his muscles aren't changing shape at all, just tensing up to point that it looks painful.

She takes a deep breath and slides off the couch carefully, onto her knees. Her hip protests but she ignores it and reaches out to Bruce. “Bruce...” she murmurs, and touches his shoulder. He flinches violently but doesn't do anything so she keeps her hand there and rubs slowly. “Bruce, you're not changing,” she says quietly.

He sobs and starts to shake.

“Oh, Bruce,” she says, and tugs him towards her. He comes, burying his face in her stomach, knocking her onto her butt. She gasps at the burst of pain, but grits her teeth against it. “It's okay,” she says, and runs her fingers through his hair. He keeps shaking and cries a little too, but mostly he stays silent.

“Hey, JARVIS called me--”

Jane looks up and finds Tony standing in the doorway. His mouth is open and his eyes are wide.

“We had an... incident,” Jane says.

Tony's eyes get wider and he takes a step into the room. “What happened?”

“Bruce got a little upset.”

“A little?” Tony says. “A _little_? That table cost--”

“It doesn't matter how much the table cost!” Jane says loudly. “It's just a table.”

“And it was a bowl yesterday and the bathroom _wall_ last week!” Tony shouts.

Bruce whimpers and presses in closer to her. Jane squeezes her eyes shut and sighs.

“Let's not shout,” she says quietly. “I think Bruce is feeling a little overstimulated.”

Tony shakes his head and walks over to them. He crouches down near them and sighs. “So am I. Maybe he should go to Ohio.”

Bruce twitches and clutches at her thigh.

“ _What_?” she hisses. “You know he can't go back there.”

“Well, it's not really working out here. I'm trying my best, Jane, but I guess my best isn't good enough.”

“What do you mean, he's been doing really well,” she says quietly, sliding her hands over his ears gently.

“Yeah, and you don't see him the rest of them time, when he's yelling and throwing things and keeping me and Pepper up all hours of the night. Ugh.” He rubs his hands over his face and shakes his head. “Look, I don't think...” He closes his eyes and sighs. “Okay, he's gotta... go see the psychiatrist tomorrow. I can't... I can't put Pepper through this any more.”

“Okay, fine,” Jane says. “That's fine.”

Tony sighs and looks over the damage. “Oh God, now I've gotta tell Pepper about this. She really liked that table.”

Jane takes a breath and holds it. It's just a damn table. “Okay,” she says, “why don't you and Pepper stay in a hotel tonight while this place is being cleaned up. Bruce can stay with me.”

Tony grimaces. “I don't... know about that.”

“I do. Just help me up, okay?”

Tony's still reluctant, but he does it and then helps Bruce up too, although Bruce won't look at him and shuts down completely. They manage to get him into the guest bed vacated by Jane's mother a few weeks ago. He seems to fall asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow, but he equally could just be pretending. She leaves him with a glass of water and goes to bed early.

-

She's waken up by a thump the next morning and rolls out of bed immediately. She doesn't bother putting on her robe and just grabs her cane and rushes out into the living room.

“Bruce?” she calls.

Thor frowns back at her. “Why would I be Bruce?”

“Oh,” she says, “oh, uh, hi. Yeah, Bruce is staying over...”

“I see,” Thor says and walks up to her. “I have missed you,” he says, and kisses the top of her head.

“Yeah, me too,” she says, and glances at the guest room door.

“Dr Foster,” JARVIS cuts in. “Mr Stark has secured an appointment with Dr Banner's psychiatrist for nine am. That is in an hour.”

“Okay, thanks, JARVIS.” She pats Thor on the chest and steps back. “I've got to go wake Bruce up, okay?”

She doesn't give Thor a chance to answer before going to the guest room and knocking on the door. She lets herself without waiting for a reply, and goes to the bed to wake him up.

“Hey, Bruce, come on, you've got to get up and have breakfast.”

Bruce groans and buries his face in the pillow. She shakes him by the arm.

“Up, come on.”

It takes a few minutes of encouragement to get him out of bed and when he sees Thor he almost turns around and goes back in the room. She grabs him by the arm and tugs him into the kitchen, then slops some cereal into a bowl for him and leaves him to eat it while she goes to get dressed. Thor follows her to the bedroom.

“Jane, may I speak with you?”

“Uhh, what about?” she asks, as she starts to dig through her chest of drawers for a clean pair of leggings.

“It's important. I had a lot of time to think while I was home.” 

She grabs a pair of leggings and starts putting them on, hopping on her good leg. Thor steadies her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders.

“Thanks,” she says, tugging the leggings up. She picks up her sweater from where it's hanging over the end of the bed and shrugs into it. “Can it wait? I've really got to get Bruce to the penthouse and then to the hospital.”

“I... suppose so, yes,” he says.

She pats him on the arm and smiles. “Great, thanks.”

Every step of the way is a struggle with Bruce. He doesn't want to eat, he doesn't want to do his teeth or shower, he certainly doesn't want to get in the car and be taken to his appointment. Maybe Jane can see what Tony was talking about.

The appointment lasts for an hour and a half, and neither Jane nor Tony are allowed in, so they go down to the cafeteria and wait. Tony looks more rested than he has in weeks.

“Good hotel?” she asks.

He nods. “Yeah... Look, Jane, I'm not trying to be an asshole about Bruce, you know? You know he's one of my best friends.”

“I know, yeah, of course.”

“And I don't care about the table, it's just a fucking table. It's just...” He shakes his head and sighs. “Me and Pep don't have kids because we don't want them, and then to have to deal with... tantrums from a hundred and sixty pound man... I...” He shrugs. “It freaks me out, I guess.”

She nods. “Yeah, I hadn't really seen him behave like that before, not that bad.”

“Oh yeah, well, he's in love with you, so there's that,” Tony says, then stops. “Uh... Let's pretend I didn't just say that.”

“What?”

Tony sighs. “What did I _just_ say?”

“Tony.”

“Ugh, all right, God! If Bruce finds out that I said anything he's going to kill me – maybe literally these days.”

“Tony!” she snaps and bangs her hand on the table.

“Okay! You know that Bruce doesn't have many friends, right?”

“Sure.”

“Yeah, it's really just you and me and sometimes Pepper, although he was still a little nervous around her before the... the shooting. Now he just stays out of her way. But anyway, he spends an awful lot of time with you and, you know... feelings happen sometime.”

“But...” She frowns. She knows he tried to kiss her, but that was because she was freaking petting his hair and stuff; she was leading him on. And maybe she knows that he has a crush on her, but... love? “Why?”

Tony pulls a face. “What do you mean why? Because you're pretty and you're smarter than he is.”

“I'm not smarter than him.”

“Well, only one of you used an experimental and untested super soldier serum radiation extraganza on yourself. Anyway, he's into you, but look, he'd never _tell_ you that or try to pursue you or anything.”

“Because of Hulk?”

Tony raises his eyebrow. “And... your boyfriend...”

“Oh yeah, right.”

“Yeah...” Tony looks at her like she's a little crazy for a moment before shaking his head slightly. “And even without all of that, I still don't think he would. I swear that man gets some kind of masochistic pleasure out of making himself miserable.”

Jane snorts. “Yeah, maybe.” He's certainly going through the highest form of torture right now. Which she has only made that much worse.

They go back up to the Psychiatric ward a few minutes later and wait for Bruce to get out of his appointment. The doctor asks to talk to Tony and they leave Jane and Bruce in the waiting room. Bruce won't really look at her, preferring to pick at his nails and stare at the floor instead. She thinks about bringing up yesterday but she doesn't know how to begin, and if she does, what's Bruce going to do, just sit there in silence and listen to her ramble?

Tony comes back out a few minutes later and they take Bruce back home, where he slopes off to his bedroom without a backward glance. The doctor, Tony tells her, has prescribed Bruce a mood stabiliser and a sedative for his panic attacks because he thinks that Bruce may have bipolar disorder despite Bruce's inability to tell the doctor anything. Jane doesn't feel great about such an uncertain diagnosis, but she guesses it's better than nothing.

She goes back up to the apartment in the early afternoon and the first thing she sees is... a suitcase in the middle of the living room.

She stops and looks at it. That is... not her suitcase.

“You're back,” Thor says from the bedroom door.

“Yeah,” she says. “Are you leaving me?”

Thor closes his eyes for a moment. “May we talk?”

She shrugs a shoulder. “Sure, okay.”

Thor nods and gestures to the couch. She walks over and sits down and Thor sits beside her, though not too close. 

“You're not using your crutch any more,” he says.

“Yep,” she says.

“Is this-” He points to the cane leaning against the couch. “-better than the crutch?”

She shrugs. “It's okay, my shoulder hurts less now.”

“That's good...” Thor murmurs.

“Yeah,” she says. Thor remains silent for a minute, frowning slightly, and she huffs and pinches the bridge of her nose. “What is it, Thor?”

He keeps frowning and looks at her sadly. “I returned to Asgard to find something.”

Yourself?, she thinks. “Did you find it?”

“Not exactly. I was searching for Idunn.”

“Okay?” she says.

“She lives in seclusion out in the orchards of Asgard, tending to her trees.”

“Okay,” Jane repeats. What else is she supposed to say?

“She is the daughter of Freya, a healer renowned for her work with fertility. Idunn's apples are said to bestow eternal youth on the eater.”

Jane feels cold all over and she slides her arm across her stomach. “Did you find her?” she says softly.

“I did, and we spoke. Though her apples have some restorative properties, they do not grant youth or immortality, that was simply a story for little children that I apparently held onto into adulthood.”

“And... what about Freya?”

“Freya... cannot regrow missing organs, though we have other kind of procedures that are not yet known on Midgard.” He pauses and looks at her; she glances at him, then looks at her lap. He sighs. “But I do not believe you would participate in them. I don't think you have ever desired to have children with me.” He told her once that he wanted ten children, at _least_ , and she'd hoped that he meant with someone other than her. “I think part of you is relieved.”

Her head snaps up. “What? I'm not _happy_ to have been shot. I'm not _happy_ to be in constant pain.”

“No, but you're glad to have an excuse to withdraw from me.”

“Excuse? It's not a fucking excuse!” She grabs her cane and makes to get up but Thor reaches out and touches his knee.

“Please,” he says, “I'm not trying to start a fight.”

“Could have fooled me,” she mutters.

He sighs. “On Asgard, we do not rend organs from the body, we heal them. Had you been on Asgard, had it happened on Asgard, you would have been made whole again.”

She swallows. “I'm whole now,” she says quietly.

Thor's brow creases a little. “Yes,” he says. “But what happened has made me realise that we are... not the same. I suppose I am as stupid as people say, because the reality of being mortal never truly occurred to me. The fragility. The... brevity,” he finishes, just above a murmur. “My brother told me once that I would never be ready for... your passing. I have realised that he is right.”

She nods slowly. “There's nothing I can do about dying,” she says.

“Nor I,” he says. He leans over and touches her knee again. “I would like you to return to Asgard with me, Jane, but I do not believe that you will, that you want to. I believe that we have been drifting from each other for months, for as long as we've been living here in this tower.”

“If you mean...” She pushes her hair back and swallows. She hasn't done anything wrong. “I haven't, I've never--”

“I'm not accusing you,” he says softly. “I would like to part on good terms. Perhaps one day you'll welcome me back. Perhaps you won't.”

She looks down at her lap again, where Thor's hand lays, and her eyes start to warm. She places her hand on top of his and nods. “I will miss you,” she murmurs.

“And I you,” he says, and leans over to kiss her on the forehead. He pulls back with a quiet sigh. “I'll be going,” he says and gets up.

“Do you want me to come--” She's not sure where he's going to leave from. The balcony? The roof? Thor turns and looks at her hopefully. “See you off,” she finishes and cringes as his face falls.

“No,” he says. “It's fine.” He picks up his suitcase and nods. “Goodbye, Jane.”

She bites her lip. “Bye,” she murmurs, as he walks out the door.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **There is an ableist slur used in this chapter.**

Bruce wakes up face down on his mattress, mouth sand-papery and head fuzzy. He painstakingly rolls over and sits up; a wave of nausea washes over him and he clamps his hand over his mouth, bends forward, and gags. He gags for a few minutes before the sensation passes.

“Ugh,” he groans and drags himself up.

He stumbles out of his bedroom, rubbing at his eyes, and walks out into the living room.

“Hey, Bruce,” Tony calls from the across the room, “you know I'm a 'let it all hang out' kind of guy, but you think you could put some pants on there? Not that--” Tony waves his hand up and down. “--this isn't nice.”

Bruce looks down at his limp dick and huffs. He turns around and goes back to his bedroom, forgoing the pants on the floor in favour of flopping face down on the bed again.

When he wakes again, his mouth feels _really_ sand-papery, but he doesn't feel nauseous, at least. In fact, he's hungry, really hungry. By reflex he turns to look at his clock radio, but sees only glowing squiggles. He rubs his face and groans again, then readies himself to speak. All he has to say is: JARVIS, what time is it?

JARVIS, what time is it?

JARVIS

what

time

is

it?

He takes a breath. “JAR.. mm, VIS, what, uh, what... Ugh. Ti—ime?” Nailed it.

“It is one thirteen pm, Dr Banner,” JARVIS says. “You slept for an additional three hours after you first awoke today.”

“Thanks...” he mumbles.

“Mr Stark is currently in his workshop but I can request that he returns if you would like?”

Bruce sighs and runs his hand over his face. “No.”

“Very good, Dr Banner.”

Bruce sighs and pulls on a pair of pants and a crumpled t-shirt, then goes out into the empty living room and through to the kitchen. His stomach growls and he goes over to the fridge to open it. These days, he's limited to what he can identify by sight; he tried picking things at random at first but ended up eating some truly disgusting pate and decided not to chance his luck again. He still doesn't know what that stuff was.

He makes himself a ham sandwich and goes back to the living room to eat it. He turns the television onto a news channel and tries to listen to what they're saying. They're all speaking very loudly and angrily and their words start to coalesce into sharp vowel sounds that he can't understand. He turns the TV off again and finishes his sandwich.

Afterwards, he goes to the guest bathroom and does his teeth, then gargles with his blue mouthwash and starts to undress for the shower.

His shower gel comes in a green bottle and his shampoo in a white one; the shower gel smells like mint and the shampoo smells generically flowery. He washes himself with a yellow flannel and scrubs his hair, then rinses himself off and dries himself with his blue towel. He redresses in his pants and t-shirt and is then faced with the exciting choice of either lying on his bed or sitting on the couch. He chooses the couch.

He turns the TV back on and flicks through blindly until he finds something he can watch. He is infinitely grateful of William Shatner's acting style now.

He gnaws on his fingernails while he watches the show; he's started doing that since he went on the mood stabilisers, his nails look like shit now but at least it's better than the twitching he does otherwise. He's been on aripiprazole (say that three times fast; or once in his case) for a week, and it kind of feels like he's in a twilight world, but he hasn't broken any more tables since. He hasn't done much of anything since, including seeing Jane or playing around with Tony's holograms, despite the fact that Tony said he was welcome to. Mostly he just stays in his room or sits on the couch and eats; he's hungry all the time. He tries to sleep, which is split pretty evenly between sleeping all the time and not sleeping at all. The doctor said it should pass after a couple of weeks.

Brain damage, on the other hand, is forever, not just for Christmas.

 _Star Trek_ ends, and he keeps on watching the TV, whatever it is that's on, he's not really sure. He only understands about half of what they say, but it's either this or silence, and when it's silent, his ears ring incessantly. 

Later, Tony comes back to the apartment; Bruce is unaware until Tony's standing right in front of him. He starts and looks up.

“Hey,” Tony says.

Bruce grunts a little and rubs his face. “What... time?”

“It's just before seven, time for your pill.”

“Oh,” he says. He thought he'd only been watching TV for a couple of hours, but apparently it's been six.

“I'll get you a glass of water and something to eat with it,” Tony says, and turns to go to the kitchen. 

Tony decided that seven was a good time for Bruce to take his medication because, quote, 'you're kind of a monster in the morning, buddy'. And Bruce is entirely reliant on having someone to tell him when to take his pill and when to go to his appointments and to read signs to him when he occasionally goes out in the world, which is _very_ occasionally. He hasn't been this helpless since he was an eight year old child.

Tony makes him another ham sandwich and gives him the little pink pill to take with a glass of water. Bruce sighs and downs it, then takes the plate from Tony. The first couple of days on it, Tony scrutinised him so closely that Bruce thought maybe Tony was going to insist that he stick out tongue to make sure he'd swallowed it. He's not quite so bad any more, but he still follows Bruce back into the living room and sits down beside him on the couch.

“Speech therapy tomorrow,” he says.

Bruce grunts and bites into his sandwich. 

“You want to do anything after? I could ask Jane to meet us somewhere...”

“No,” Bruce says around a mouthful of bread.

“No, of course not,” Tony mutters. “Well, is there anything you want to do?”

“No,” Bruce repeats.

“Right,” Tony says, and sighs.

Bruce finishes the sandwich and puts the plate on the new, _wooden_ , coffee table. “Bed,” he says.

“You're going to bed now? It's not even seven fifteen.”

Bruce shrugs and gets up.

“Good talk...” Tony murmurs.

Bruce goes to sleep before Pepper gets home, but wakes up again in the early hours of the morning, jolting out of a vivid dream about his mother and gravestones and lots and lots of blood. He curls up on the bed and presses his wet face to the sheets for few minutes. Another side effect that will pass, according to the doctor. When he stops shaking, he goes to the kitchen and gets a bag of chips and what's left of a cake. He eats it in bed, then goes back to sleep on top of the crumbs. JARVIS rouses him at eleven and he brushes the crumbs onto the floor before going to the bathroom.

He's got the normal morning wood and jerks one out quickly before showering.

“Good morning, sunshine!” Tony calls when Bruce slopes into the living room.

“Mor... ning,” Bruce mumbles. 

After some more eating, Tony hustles him out of the penthouse and down to the garage to go to his therapy appointment. The woman keeps him waiting for ten minutes, and his twitching gets worse, like he can't keep his hands still at all. He sticks his thumbnail in his mouth and bites down.

“Mr Banner?” the receptionist calls. “The doctor will see you now.”

Tony rolls his eyes and Bruce tenses before getting up and following the receptionist to the office.

Dr McCarthy smiles as he sits down. “Good afternoon, Dr Banner.”

“Hi,” he mumbles.

“Can you tell me your name?”

He sighs and rubs his forehead. They run through this every single time. “Mm. Bru... uh... Bru—sah Bah... ner.”

McCarthy smiles. “And how old are you?”

“F... four... Tee. Fiiive.” He groans and pinches the bridge of his nose. Bruce Banner, forty five years old, struggling with his words like three year old. Hell, three year olds speak more fluidly than this.

“Very good,” she says. “Now, I know you've been having trouble with speaking in full sentences so I thought we'd go back to basics.”

How much more basic can this _get_?

She retrieves a pack of cards from her bag and holds them in her hands. More flashcards. Yay. “Each card has a letter of the alphabet on it. I'll show you one at a time and you can tell me what it is.

He sighs and nods. She holds up the first card: A, B, C, D... In isolation, he can read them fine, but when she lays each one out on the table in between them they became jumbled and indistinguishable to him.

When they get to Z, she smiles and congratulates him. He just barely stops himself from rolling his eyes.

“Okay, now I'd like you to spell out your first name with the letters on the table.”

Bruce looks down at the cards laid out on the table. He can spell his name in his head – B R U C E – but when he looks down at the letters, it's a wash. He takes a breath and tries to think; B is the second letter in the alphabet, he can count to the dizzying heights of two.

He picks up the second card and places it below the line of cards. McCarthy smiles encouragingly and he returns to the cards. C is after B; he picks up that card and puts it next to the B. E is... two along so he picks up that one as well and puts it next to the C and looks at what he's got. BCE.

“What about the R and the U?” she asks.

He looks at the remaining letters and frowns. They're still unrecognisable to him, but perhaps he can locate the last two letters the same way he found the other three. He tries to count from A through R on his fingers but stalls at K – is that number twelve? Nine? No, ten... He bangs his palm against his forehead and McCarthy quietly reprimands him. 

Once upon a time he took AP Geometry at eleven years old.

Maybe he can find the U more easily, it's only a few letters from the end, if he works backwards from Z... Z, X, W... No, that's not... He shakes his head. X, Y, Z; Z, W, Y... Christ, why can't he...?

“Bruce?” McCarthy says. “How are you doing with that?”

“Mm.” He shakes his head again and shrugs. “No.”

“Okay,” she says softly.

The rest of the appointment goes about as badly as the start and Bruce feels despondent as he leaves the room an hour later. Thankfully Tony doesn't ask how it went and they go back to the car in silence.

“Wanna do anything before we go home?” Tony asks.

Bruce sighs and his stomach growls. Tony smirks a little. “Hungry,” he murmurs.

“We can swing by McDonalds if you want.”

“'k,” he says.

Tony pulls up the McDonalds menu on his phone and Bruce chooses a burger, fries, and a milkshake before they pull up to the drive-thru. When Tony pulls the car up to pay, the guy behind the counter gawks at him and Tony signs three napkins before driving away.

Bruce is still hungry when they back to the tower.

In the early evening, while Bruce is eating chips and watching TV, and Tony is on his laptop by the window, Pepper arrives home along with Colonel Rhodes.

“Look who I found loitering in the building,” she says with a smile.

Tony hurries across the room to embrace Rhodey with a few smacks on the back. They haven't seen each for a while, Bruce knows he's been sucking up all Tony's time, and some of his money, too.

“Hey, Dr Banner, I haven't seen you in a while,” Rhodey calls. In fact, they've only met a handful of times, the last being at a Christmas party over six months ago. Bruce liked Rhodey then but his deep-seated distrust of military men made it hard start an actual friendship. Today, his stomach is gurgling uneasily.

“Hi,” he mumbles back, getting up.

“We were thinking that we could order in some food,” Pepper says. “What do you think?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Tony says. “Bruce?”

“Mm,” he hums. “Uh, no. Ti—ed.”

Rhodey's eyebrows draw together a little but he smiles anyway. “Hey, maybe next time.”

Bruce hums again. “Yeah...”

“I'll, uh, I'll just grab you something to eat now, then,” Tony says. What he means is, 'you need to take your meds,' but doesn't want to bring it up in front of Rhodey. Bruce guesses that he appreciates the thought. He takes his pill and eats the sandwich Tony makes him in his room.

He can hear the dull murmur of the three of them talking and laughing. Tony never laughs around Bruce any more, unless it's strained and nervous. Perhaps Bruce's greatest skill in life has been his ability to push away and alienate people, and he's certainly done a fine job of it this time. Pepper avoids him, he torpedoed his friendship with Jane by acting like a psycho, he successfully threw all Susan's kindness back in her face for a _second_ time, Betty left before he even woke up (he's had one phone call from her, in which he listened to her talk, then handed the phone back to Tony), and Tony only sticks by him out of duty, because Bruce would probably get himself killed within days left to his devices.

He falls asleep on top of his covers, listening to their faint conversation, still in his clothes.

-

A few days later, Jen comes by to visit. She's just got out of court, so she's in a suit and sensible heels, with her hair done up into a bun. She looks very grown up, which he guesses she is; she's thirty seven years old now, though she doesn't look it – those babyface genes are strong in their family – and in his head he still sees her as a ten year old in dungarees.

She suggests that they go out for a late lunch and Tony jumps on the opportunity to get Bruce out of the penthouse for a while, so Bruce reluctantly agrees.

“How are you feeling today?” she asks as they walk to a café.

“Okay,” he says.

She smiles. “Tony says you've been doing better in therapy.”

“Guess... so,” he says haltingly. He wonders how much of that was sarcasm on Tony's part, but it's not like he can express that to Jen.

Jen leads him into a café, thankfully not a crowded Starbucks like the last time he went out to eat, and they walk up to the counter.

“What do you want?” Jen asks.

“Mm... sand... wich,” he mumbles. 

She gestures to the board above the counter. “What kind?”

He looks up at the chalk board and sees the usual jumble of letters. Someone drew some helpful pictures of different items of food, but they're not so identifiable as to actual be of any help to him.

“Uh...” he murmurs. “Can't...”

Jen pinks a little. “Oh God! Sorry I didn't-- I, uh... Okay. They've got, er, BLTs? I remember you liking those.”

He can feel the eyes of the person behind them on him. “'k,” he mumbles, and looks around for an empty table. He finds one, and points to it.

“Okay, yeah,” she says, cheeks very pink now. “You go sit down, I'll bring the food over.”

He sits down by the window and watches cars pass in the street for a few minutes, until Jen comes back with two bottles of water and a sheepish smile.

“I got you some water too, they're just toasting the sandwiches.”

He nods and she sits down beside him. 

“I'm... I'm sorry that I... forgot,” she says, grimacing a little.

“Fine,” he says with a shrug. It's nicer to have people assume competence than incompetence about him these days.

She pats him on the arm. “You seem to be doing better, though, your speech has improved.”

He smirks. 'Better than nothing' is hardly 'better' in the traditional sense.

“I mean it,” she says softly.

Everyone means it. Everyone means, 'thank God your hair grew back so I don't have to look at that scar any more'. Everyone means, 'at least you don't drool and shit your pants, you're doing okay'. Everyone means, 'it freaks me out that you can't speak but good on you for not being dead'. Everyone means, 'stop being weird so I can pretend that everything is normal'.

He smiles and nods. “I... know.”

She smiles back. “I'm sorry I haven't been around more recently. I've been working on this big case, it's been killing me.” She pauses and looks at him worriedly. “I mean... not, uh...”

He laughs. “Fine,” he says.

“Sorry,” she says, and smiles ruefully. The barista calls up her sandwich order and she gets up to fetch it. The people at the table next to him are talking quietly to each other and when Bruce glances at them, they fall silent. He tries not to read anything into it.

Jen comes back with their sandwiches and they eat in silence for a while, until Jen starts digging through her bag.

“Oh,” she says, “I was looking through my closet and I found some old pictures of us!”

She pulls out an envelope of photos and takes out a handful. Bruce is pretty sure she didn't just stumble upon them while getting dressed this morning.

“Look how young you are!” she says, gesturing to the first photo. He's eight years old, awkwardly holding Jen all bundled up in a pink blanket. She was born in August, three months after Bruce came to live with Susan and her husband and kids. He didn't meet her until December, when they all went to Jen's parents' house for Christmas. Her parents, Elaine and Morris, didn't really want Bruce going anywhere near her, especially after Brian's lawyers had suggested that Bruce was mentally ill – hey, turns out they were right! – but Susan got her one picture of them together and gave Bruce a little teddy bear that she said was from Jen. Bruce had looked at her sceptically and she'd laughed and said it was symbolic, like Santa. He'd had to pretend for _years_ around his cousins that Santa was real.

“You were so little,” she adds, grinning.

“You too,” he murmurs.

She laughs and flicks through the rest of them. The photos chart Christmases and Thanksgivings, Bruce winning science fairs, Jen winning spelling bees, and ends with a gangly, pimply sixteen year old Bruce looking sullenly into the camera, a couple of months before he left for Harvard.

And leave he did. After the summer of 1987, he never went back to Ohio to live. He visited for a couple of holidays, the ones that he couldn't wriggle his way out of, but by the time he was twenty three and working on his PhD, he stopped going back at all. He effectively abandoned Jen. They saw each other a little more after she started at Harvard Law, but he was thirty by then, living with Betty, and becoming increasingly obsessed over his gamma radiation research. He didn't have time for simple familial relationships.

God, he was such a fucking asshole.

“Sor-- ree,” he murmurs.

“What? Sorry for what?”

“Mm.” He taps the last picture of him. “Lea-- ving.”

“Leaving?” she repeats. “You mean, when you left for Harvard? Why are you sorry about that?”

He shrugs. “Didn't... come back.”

“Why would you?” she asks. “Harvard vs. Ohio isn't much of competition. I know that as well as you do. No one expected you to come back to live in Ohio.”

“You... cried,” he mutters.

Jen frowns. “When you left for college? I was seven, I cried when McDonalds ran out of Happy Meal toys. I cried about everything. Are you... do you feel guilty about that?”

He shrugs, then nods slowly.

“Bruce, come on. What you did was totally normal. You would have hated moving back home after college. I missed you, but I wasn't angry with you. You shouldn't feel bad about that.”

“Mm,” he murmurs, and she rolls her eyes.

“You've always has such a guilt complex, Bruce,” she says.

“I... No,” he says, and pulls a face.

Jen laughs and points to his sandwich. “Finish your food.”

-

Aside from his trip out with Jen, Bruce passes another week essentially alone. Tony's got some big deadline or something coming up and spends most of his time in the workshop, and Pepper doesn't get home until late in the evening. Not that her and Bruce would have nice long chats normally. They'd been friendly prior to the shooting, though even then he was a little nervous around her, but since it he just tries to stay out of her way. She obviously doesn't want him living in her apartment and he can barely string two words together around her.

He goes to all his therapy appointments, speech and psychologist, but doesn't get very far with either. Mostly he just sits at home, sleeps, eats, and watches TV. When he weighed himself a couple of days ago, JARVIS informed him that he'd gained eight pounds. 

“Hey, I need to talk to you,” Tony says, while Bruce has his feet up on the coffee table, watching some cartoon. He taps Bruce's legs, and Bruce drops them back to the floor to let him pass.

“Yeah, so,” Tony says, and sits down. “You know that project I've been working on recently?”

Bruce nods.

“There's a conference coming up in California soon, and me and Pep have really got to be there.”

“Okay,” Bruce says.

Tony purses his mouth a little. “So I asked Jen to stay over while we were gone but she's really snowed under with this case,” he says quickly.

Bruce narrows his eyes.

Tony glances at him and clears his throat. “And then I asked Rhodey if he'd like free food for a week but he's doing some Air Force thing, so... Jane's going to check in on you while we're gone.”

“No,” Bruce says, and Tony grimaces. “Don't need... baby—sit...ter.”

“Look, I know you don't think, uh... I know you can get by on your own, but you still need someone to give you your medication and take you to appointments.”

Bruce points at the ceiling. “JARVIS.”

“Yeah, but he can't drive you anywhere on account of not being a real person – no offence, J.”

“None taken, sir.”

“And do you really think you can use the subway on your own right now?” he finishes. “Or pay a cab fare with cash?”

Bruce feels himself flush and sets his jaw. “Look after myself,” he mumbles.

Tony sighs. “She won't be staying over, just coming by in the day. I mean it makes sense, she only lives four floors below us.”

Bruce looks away. He is well aware of where she lives, how they're avoiding seeing each other at such close quarters. He hasn't seen her once since he slept in her guest room, since Thor came back. Maybe he's being too full of himself, though, maybe she isn't avoiding him, maybe it's just that her boyfriend is home and her weird, brain-damaged friend took a dive off the deep end and she has better things to do with her time now.

“What even happened, man?” Tony asks. “You and Jane were... BFFs, or whatever.”

Bruce shrugs.

“Is this about your freak out? It wasn't _her_ priceless irreplaceable glass coffee table.”

Bruce twitches. “Bed,” he mumbles, and gets up.

“Okay,” Tony calls. “Sleep well... at three in the afternoon...”

-

Tony and Pepper leave for California a few days later, and for the first few hours he's alone. He eats leftovers out of the fridge and wanders around the apartment until JARVIS tells him that Jane is on her way up. He debates for a minute whether to stay in the living room or not, but ultimately isn't brave enough to face her, so he retreats to his room and listens at the door.

“Bruce?” Jane calls. “JARVIS, is Bruce here?”

“Dr Banner is in his room.” After a pause, he adds, “Sleeping.”

Bruce doesn't hear what Jane says after that, but she doesn't come to his room, so he lies down on his bed and really does fall asleep for a while, until he's woken by a knock on the door.

“Bruce?” Jane calls through the door. “It's time for your medication...”

He lies there looking at the door for a minute, as Jane keeps knocking, then pulls himself up with a groan and goes to the door.

Jane blinks at him nervously when he opens the door. She holds up a glass of water and a plate with the pill and a sandwich on it. “Tony said you take them at seven?” she says.

“Mm,” he murmurs, and takes the pill of the plate, then takes the glass of water and swallows it. He takes the plate, too, leaving her empty handed. “Thanks,” he mutters.

“No problem,” she says and purses her lips. Bruce looks at the floor. “I guess, uh, I'll get going? JARVIS can let me know if you need anything else.”

“Okay,” he says.

She bites her lip and nods. “Night, then.”

“Mm,” he replies and closes the door again.

He goes back to sleep without bothering to get undressed, not that his day clothes are so drastically different from his night clothes any more, and sleeps through until the morning.

“Bruce...” a voice murmurs in his ear, breath tickling his skin.

He sighs and rolls onto his side, opening his eyes slowly. Jane is leaning over him, smiling. She leans in and kisses him, first his eyebrow, then his cheek, then his mouth. She straddles his waist and kisses him slow and sweet, curling her fingers around his shoulders. He runs his hands up and down her body and grasps her ass, pressing her in closer. It stretches on forever, just kissing and touching each other.

He presses her down against the bed and rolls his hips. Jane sighs lightly and strokes his face, the back of her fingers trailing across his cheek. He turns into it, sucking on her fingers. She grasps his neck, arching up against him and he groans, burying his face in her shoulder. He mouths at her soft skin and grinds his hips down, chasing the high. He bites her shoulder as his orgasm builds, and rocks his hips faster and faster, until his toes curl and he comes hard enough that light speckles the inside of his eyelids.

He pants into his pillow for a couple of minutes before he feels something rough against his tongue. He opens his eyes slowly to find that he's biting his pillow, that he has cooling drool on his face and semen staining the front of his sweatpants and the sheet underneath him. He rolls over onto his back and groans.

He avoids her again when she comes in in the evening, doesn't even say anything as he takes the pill from, and closes the door in her face. The thought of that dream makes him flush all over and he doubly can't look her in the eye now. This goes on for three days; he hides in his room and she brings him food and water and medication. On the Monday, though, when he goes to close the door again, she puts her hand out to keep it open.

“I know you're angry with me,” she says and screws up her face. “I'm _sorry_ , Bruce.”

He frowns and opens his mouth.

She crosses an arm over her chest and bites her lip. “I'm sorry that I led you on. I didn't mean to, I just... I don't know, I, I...” She shakes her head. “I'm sorry,” she says quietly.

“No,” he says, and she cringes. Does she really think...? The creaky wheels of his brain start to turn. “'m not... angry. 'm... ashamed of... myself,” he forces out slowly. “I... bad. Behaved... like a... luna...uh...loo, lu-na-tic.”

“Oh,” she says and purses her mouth. “So you're not angry with me?”

He shakes his head. “No. You're angry... me. With me.”

She blinks. “I'm not angry with you.”

“You're not?”

“No,” she says, then starts to smile. “So, we've been avoiding each other for no reason?”

“Yeah,” he says, and smiles back..

“Okay then,” she says, and grins. “Do you want to go sit in the living room?”

“Yeah,” he says.

He follows her back out into the living room and puts the plate and glass down on the coffee table before sitting on the couch. Jane joins him and smiles again.

“So, how have you been doing? Your speech is much better now.”

“Bit,” he mutters.

“Come on, it's more than a bit,” she says, and nudges his leg.

He shrugs.

Jane sighs a little and points to the plate. “Don't forget your pill.”

“Mm,” he murmurs, and picks it and the glass of water up again. He swallows the pill with a gulp of water and puts the glass back down with a sigh.

“How's it going with medication? Is it helping?”

He shrugs again. “Dunno.”

“Are you getting any side effects?”

He nods. “Makes me... sleepy. Hungry. Put on weight.”

Jane pulls a sympathetic face. “It doesn't show.”

He pokes at his stomach, which is straining slightly against his sweatpants. He's going to need new ones soon. “Does.”

Jane is quiet for a moment before laughing softly. 

He turns and scowls at her.

“Sorry,” she says, waving her hands a little. “You're just such a _grump_ sometimes.”

He scowls harder. “'m not,” he says, even as a smile tugs at his lips and his scowl turns silly. He clasps his hands in his lap and laughs a little. Jane grins and nudges his leg again.

“A smile!” she says.

Bruce feels himself begin to pink. It would be so easy to lean over and kiss her now. It would be so easy for her to kiss back, to push her fingers through his hair and hold him still. She'd laugh against his mouth and he'd skim his hand down her side and twist his fingers around the end of her t-shirt. She'd press her tongue between his lips, urging his mouth open, and it would just all be so _easy_.

Except it wouldn't. She'd have to tell him no again and do the awkward dance of choosing her words carefully and then they'd go back to avoiding each other, and he already feels better sitting on the couch with her. He can't go through that again.

He looks at her and smiles, then leans forward and picks up his sandwich. “Movie,” he says.

-

He's woken the next day by insistent banging on his door.

“Bruce!” Jane calls through the door. “I hope you're decent, I'm coming in.”

He hasn't even managed to open his eyes yet, but he can feel his erection heavy against his thigh, and he grabs all available blankets and sheets and bunches them up around his lap as Jane opens the door.

“Time to get up!” Jane says cheerfully and flips the light on.

“Waz time?” he mumbles, dragging himself up and squinting at Jane. She's standing near the bed, poking his discarded clothes on the floor with her cane.

“Ten to twelve,” she says, and looks up at him. “Go have a shower and get dressed, we're going out today.”

“Where?” He sort of wonders if this is a dream, but his dreams about Jane tend to be more lurid than this.

“I don't know yet,” she says, “we can decide when we're out, but we are going outside of this building today.”

“Okay,” he says, and yawns, covering his face with his hands for a moment. He rubs at his cheeks, then drops his hands into his lap again. Jane smiles.

“I'll make you breakfast while you're in the shower,” she says, and starts back to the door.

“Thanks,” Bruce says.

“And real clothes,” Jane calls as she leaves the room. “No sweatpants!”

He jerks off in the shower even as he feels guilty about it, then dresses in a t-shirt and jeans. The jeans are a hell of a lot snugger than the last time he put them on. He goes out to the kitchen and Jane gives him a bowl of cereal.

“I was thinking that maybe we could go to the Museum of Natural History?” she asks.

Bruce swallows a mouthful of milk and Cocoa Puffs – Pepper's favourite brand – and smiles. “Okay.”

They leave by one and Jane hails a cab to take them to the museum. She has trouble getting out of the cab when they get there and he goes around to her other side to help her out. He puts his hands on her sides and she hooks her arm around his neck as he lift her up. She keeps her arm around his shoulders as she pays the driver and it feels so damn nice. He could turn his head and kiss her cheek right now...

She looks at him and smiles. “Wanna go in?” She pulls her arm away from his shoulders and leans her weight more heavily on her cane. He bites back a sigh.

“Yeah.”

They start out at the dinosaur exhibit, because who doesn't? Susan used to take him to museums all the time when he was a kid, just the two of them because her kids didn't want to do something so 'boring'. That was just fine by Bruce, he couldn't stand his cousins. He tried to keep in touch with Jen after leaving Ohio, but he never bothered with Laurie, Jason, and Chris, and he hasn't heard a word from them since the shooting. So the two of them would go to museums and galleries and he'd explain all the exhibits to her; Susan had fled her abusive father at sixteen and never finished high school, and she never did much in elementary school either, she told him once. Sometimes he wondered if that was why she was so taken with him, because he was smart. He didn't mind, it was nice to have someone like him for any reason at all.

He explained all about the dinosaurs and the planets and nuclear fission and even Renaissance painters, and she would listen to every word he said. That was nice.

Of course these days the likelihood of him ever teaching anyone about anything ever again is slim to none.

“These are my favourites,” Jane says, pointing to one of the armadillo-looking dinosaurs. “When I was a kid, I though they looked like they'd make great pets.”

Bruce smiles. He doesn't remember what the name is, he probably knew once, but he's forgotten an awful lot since high school.

“What's called?” he asks.

“Oh!” she says. “Yeah, it's an ankylosaur.”

“Cool,” he says.

Jane grins. “Yeah. Let's go look at the mummified dinosaur.”

Once they've finished wandering around the exhibit, Bruce's stomach starts to growl.

“Sorry,” he mutters, and folds his arms over his middle.

“They have pretty nice cafés here,” Jane says, and closes her hand around his arm to guide him.

They end up in a café near the Hayden Planetarium – Jane's whole face lights up when she talks about going there afterwards – and sit at the only free table, in the middle of the room. Jane leans her cane against the table and stretches her arms over her head with a grunt. It's not the location he would have chosen, and the high volume voices and occasional childish shrieks makes him want to pull his shoulders up to his ears, but he'd like one day of not embarrassing himself in front of Jane. Just the one.

Jane talks a bit, but he can't follow what she's saying over the noise of everyone around them. Her mouth moves and he can pick up some words, but the rest washes away into the background. After a few minutes, Jane stops talking – she must notice his vague smiles and confused expression – and Bruce focuses on picking at his sandwich. Does he eat anything else these days?

A couple of kids dart by the table, banging into it. Bruce doesn't pay much attention until Jane turns in her seat and yells.

“Hey!”

Bruce frowns. “What?”

He manages to make out, “Those kids … cane!” She gestures insistently at the two kids, now across the café, playing with her cane like a sword.

He narrows his eyes and stands up.

She looks up at him worriedly. “Are you going to...?”

“Get,” he says, and pats her on the shoulder before walking over to the kids.

They ignore him until he's right in front of them, and even then it's barely a flicker of their eyes in his general direction. He holds out his hand.

“Give,” he says.

One of the kids, the one holding the cane, sneers at him. “Who are you?”

“Give... me,” he forces out. Christ, it's so fucking _loud_ in here.

“He can't even talk right,” the other kid says.

Bruce lunges to grab hold of the cane and lean in. He bears his teeth and growls like a dog, like fucking _Hulk_. The kid lets go of the cane with a squeak, and Bruce pulls it away. He stares at the kids for another second before turning around and going back to the table.

“Here,” he says, handing it back to Jane.

She takes it and lays it across her lap. “Thanks. Are you okay?”

Bruce rolls his shoulders and tries to shake out the tension in his body. “Fine,” he says, and smiles a little.

They go back to eating for a while. Bruce finishes his sandwich and he still has that gnawing hunger in his gut, but it's easier to ignore, so he does. He taps his fingertips against the table and tries to focus on just that rhythm, not everything else that's going on around him.

“Bruce?” Jane says. She's looking worriedly over his head; he frowns and starts to turn when someone grabs him roughly by the shoulder.

“I'm talking to you,” a man says. He's big and bald and gripping Bruce's shoulder hard. Bruce takes a breath and clenches his fists

“Hey!” Jane says. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Did you threaten my kids?” The kid that stole the cane is hiding behind the man's legs, but Bruce can still see the shit-eating grin.

“Your kids stole my cane!” Jane says.

The guy sneers. “Your psycho boyfriend growled at my kids, lady.”

“He can't talk,” the kid says from behind his hiding spot. “He's a re- _tard_.”

“ _What?_ ” Jane explodes, and pulls herself up on her cane. “How _dare_ \--”

Bruce doesn't understand the next few things that she says, she speaks too fast and too angrily. He folds in on himself, wrapping his arms around himself and keeping his head down. It's times like these that Hulk would make his feelings known, but he's nowhere, he's not home any more. Bruce is alone. He pulls his sleeves over his hands and curls his hands into his lap.

Another guy joins the argument, standing beside Jane and gesturing towards the door. The man and his kids reluctantly move away and Jane thanks the other guy.

Jane turns back to Bruce and sits down slowly beside him. She lays her hand on his arm and he twitches.

“Do you want to go home?” she asks softly.

He squeezes his eyes shut and swallows, then looks up. Everyone's looking at him, behind their hands and their museum brochures.

“No,” he mutters. She was looking forward to going to the planetarium. “No, mm... space.”

“Space?” she repeats. “The planetarium?”

He nods and tries to smile a little. Jane rubs her thumb against his arm.

“Okay, let's go,” she says, and slides her hand between to his clasped ones, taking his. She gets back up and picks up her cane, tugging on Bruce's hand to follow her. People look.

She stumbles a bit as they walk towards the planetarium and leans more heavily on her cane.

“Okay?” he asks.

She smiles tightly. “Just a twinge.”

The Space Show is on dark matter; Jane smiles knowingly at Bruce.

“One day I'm going to tell Neil all about my adventures,” she says quietly.

Bruce smiles a little and settle back in his seat. The show starts, plunging the theatre into darkness. He lets out a quiet sigh. It's better in the dark, he can't see all the people around him, only Jane, who's still holding his hand. No one's looking at him any more.

The show starts with the usual discussion of the largeness of the universe and the smallness of humanity. Like every other nerdy child, Bruce had loved space and planets and all of that, but he could never get into astrophysics. He took a course in it in his freshman year at Harvard, but having empirical evidence that he's insignificant wasn't something he could get to grips with. Of course, it wasn't like he hadn't been reminded of his insignificance every day of his life, but having a professor confirm to him and the rest of the class... He couldn't cope with that.

Jane doesn't see it that way. She told him once that it made her feel connected, to everything that came before and everything that will come long after she's gone. That made her feel reassured, she told him, like when she died she'd disperse back into the universe forever. Then she'd blushed and said that she must have been getting loopy from the lack of sleep.

Tony told Bruce that he died on the table three times when they were digging around in his head. The longest, and last, stretch was six minutes. Six minutes of his heart not beating, his brain not sending signals to his body, his lungs not inflating and deflating. Six minutes of death. The doctors had almost given up resuscitating him when his heart started up again. They did give up on trying to remove the bullet.

When he was out of surgery, he had two seizures in the ICU, the doctors thought he was toast then. But somehow he just clung on, like the gunk at the bottom of a trash can. Maybe if he'd died, he would have dispersed across the universe, like Jane said; his atoms would have turned into stars. But that's just another word for nothingness, no consciousness, the end. He's just the sum of his parts, not the decaying contents of his mind. Death is death is death.

Tears roll down his cheeks and he takes a deep breath and holds it. His body shudders and he bites lips. Jane is still holding his hand and she squeezes it a bit tighter, turning her head towards him. He stares resolutely ahead and after a few minutes, she looks away again.

He zones out after that and only comes back to himself when Jane shakes him slightly and the lights start to come up again. He cringes a little and squeezes his eyes shut for a second. Jane turns in her seat and smiles a little.

“Do you want to look around the other exhibits?”

“Mm...” Now that the lights are on again, people can see him. People from the café. People looking. He shakes his head.

“Okay. Do you want to get something to eat?”

“At home,” he says.

“Okay, yeah, at home.”

Back at the tower, she orders a medium sized pizza for them but only eats two slices before leaving him the rest.

“I'm full,” she says.

He doesn't think that she is, but he's hungry, so he eat the rest of it. Jane gives him his pill and he dutifully takes it. He wants to curl up on the couch and go to sleep, he wants her to... to pet his hair while he falls asleep, God that would be nice...

He scrubs his hands over his face and into his hair.

“Hey,” Jane says, “can I ask you something?”

He sighs. “Sure.”

“What that kid said before...”

“'strue,” he mumbles.

“It is _not_ true,” she says. “It's a horrible word and they were _horrible_ people.” She grabs hold of both of his hands and squeezes. “Bruce, are you listening to me?”

He lifts a shoulder and looks down at their hands. Her slender fingers are tightly clutching his stubby, callused ones.

“Thor...” he murmurs.

“What?”

He sighs. “Thor?”

“What about him?”

Your boyfriend isn't going to like this, he thinks, but he can't say that, for multiple reasons. He shrugs.

“We broke up,” she says.

He blinks and looks up at her. Broken up... “When?”

“Three/four weeks ago,” she says. She's still holding his hands, and lightly rubs her thumbs against his palms.

“Oh,” he murmurs. He tries not to smile, but one tugs at the corners of his mouth anyway.

“Don't be too sad about it,” Jane says and smiles herself. “You feeling better?”

Bruce nods. “Yeah.”

“Good,” she says softly.

-

She takes him to his appointments by cab. Dr McCarthy smiles as he sits down.

“Bruce Banner,” he says without prompting. “For-tee five.”

McCarthy smiles wider. “Very good. You're in a good mood today.”

“Yeah.”

“That's great, Bruce. Why don't you tell me about your week?”

“Oh,” he says. “Um... I went... my friend. Out with my friend. To... the history mew-zee-um.”

“What did you see there?”

“Din-o-saurs. Space show.” He doesn't want to tell her about the other thing, even if he could verbalise it.

“That sounds really nice. What's your friend's name?”

“Jane.”

“Oh,” she says, and smiles. “I've met her, haven't I? She was injured at the same time as you.”

“Yeah.”

“She's a close friend, isn't she?”

He nods. “Yeah.”

She looks at him. “That's nice.”

Bruce shifts under her knowing gaze. He hates when people look at him like that. Tony looks at him like that, has since before the shooting. Every time he mentioned Jane before, Tony would smirk a little and say something about _how much_ Thor was enjoying New York. Since the shooting, he took to smiling softly like Bruce was a sad dog whenever Jane was around or Bruce said something about her. He thinks he preferred the condescending asshole routine than the walking on eggshells, caring version of Tony.

Thankfully, McCarthy moves on from that line of conversation and starts him on practising his handwriting. He doesn't want to do it, how can he write if he can't even understand letters in sequence any more? She tells him she only wants him to get used to holding a pen, though, and shows him an example of what to do – draw loops along the page in an approximation of slanted cursive. He wants to tell her that even when he could write, it looked like chicken scratch, but of course, he doesn't tell her that. He tries to hold the pen correctly; he knows, objectively, how to hold the pen, of course he does. Between his index finger and his thumb, the ballpoint end resting against his middle finger, but he still grips it too tight, clenches his fist around it and stabs at the paper. Jesus.

“We'll work on it,” McCarthy says, reaching for her flashcards.

All in all it's a good session, better than normal, and he smiles at Jane when he finds her in the waiting room.

“Ready to go?” she says, dropping a Readers Digest on the nearby table. 

“Yeah.”

She pulls herself up with a slight huff and fumbles with her cane, listing sideways. He grabs hold of her arms to steady and she stumbles into him for second before righting herself.

“Thanks,” she murmurs. That means let go, so he does, and stuffs his hands in his back pockets.

She turns and starts walking towards the exit. These days, Bruce has to be careful not to outpace her. Before, despite her short stride, she jetted all over the place and Bruce could never keep up with her at his usual slow wander.

“Jane?” he says, as they clear the doors of the unit and get out into the hallway.

“Yeah?”

“Can we...” He pauses. He doesn't want to go sit at home again. “Movie?”

She presses the down button for the elevator and looks at him. “You want to watch something when we get home?”

“Mm.” He shakes his head. “Movie... th-th-- house? Place?”

“Oh, you want to go to the cinema?”

“Yeah.”

She grins. “Yeah, absolutely!” The elevator doors open and she threads her arm through his as they get in.

They end up seeing a cartoon. He has to point to the poster on the wall, and he only chooses it because he thinks he might have a hope of following it. He doesn't, really (and he remembers little about the film afterwards), but he's sitting in a mostly empty theatre with a big bag of popcorn on the armrest between him and Jane, and sometimes she knocks her knee against his. Under different circumstances, this could be a date.

-

Tony and Pepper come back on Thursday afternoon. Jane has bought him a sketch pad and they're sitting at the kitchen table while she tries to help him with his writing. She covers his hand with hers and tries to help him move his fingers. He's embarrassed because his fingernails look so awful these days, all chewed up and red, but Jane ignores them.

“Stop tensing your hand,” she murmurs. She's sitting very close to him, her knees pressed against his. If he could, maybe he'd tell her that either he's going to tense up or he's going to turn into a puddle, there's no in between option.

“Sorry,” he says.

With her hand guiding his, he's able to draw a series of loops along the page, but when she lets go, his fingers clench up and he starts twisting his hand downwards again. His hand starts to cramp.

“Ow,” he mutters.

“Cramp?” she asks. He nods. “Okay, let's stop for a while.”

He nods again, but he can't get his fingers to unclench now. Jane watches him for a minute, then reaches over and tugs the pen out his grip. She puts it aside, then slips her fingers into his palm and starts kneading his skin.

“Um...” he murmurs. She slides her thumb up his palm to the base of his fingers and rubs his knuckles. “Mm.” That's not the exact noise he meant to make, but it feels really good. It feels really, _really_ good. She bends his fingers back one by one, until each of his knuckles pop. His hand is completely unclenched now, but she keeps going, sliding her fingers down to his wrist to massage his pulse point.

“Maybe he's still asleep,” Bruce hears from outside the door. He blinks heavily and looks up at the door.

“It's three in the afternoon...” Pepper answers.

“And yet...” Tony says, and rounds the door. “Oh. Having said that...”

Jane withdraws her hands from Bruce's as Pepper appears behind Tony.

“Hello, Jane, Bruce,” she says.

Jane nods. “Hi, Pepper.”

Pepper smiles and taps Tony on the shoulder. “I'll be in the bedroom getting changed.”

“I'll be there in a minute,” Tony calls to her as she leaves, then smiles at them. “You two didn't get up to any mischief, I hope?”

“You're the only one who gets up to 'mischief',” Jane says. “Good trip?”

“The bar was,” he says. “How you doing there, Bruce?”

Bruce closes his hand slowly and smiles a little. “'m good.”

Tony smirks a little. “Good. We can chat later, I've gotta jump in the shower.”

“Okay,” he says.

He watches Tony go for a second before turning back to Jane.

“You want to keep going?” she asks.

For a moment he thinks that she means with the hand massage, but then she taps the pad with her fingers.

“Sure,” he says.

-

He spends the another couple of hours struggling with his writing, getting nowhere. Jane says that the squiggles and lines are progress, 'look, you aren't clenching your hand as much any more!'; they're not, but he doesn't mind. She leaves in the late afternoon to do some stuff in her apartment, and Bruce resists the urge to go back to his bedroom to hide while Tony and Pepper settle back in. 

The two of them end up in the kitchen making dinner while Bruce stays on the couch, biting his fingernails. He didn't leave things on very good terms when Tony left for California. He wasn't on good terms with anyone. He was being a brat.

He sighs and gets up to go to the kitchen.

Tony's stirring something in a pan with one hand and talking quietly with Pepper, who's sitting on top of the counter looking at her phone.

“Hi,” Bruce says.

“Hello, Bruce,” Pepper says.

Tony looks over his shoulder. “Hey, man. You seem a little more chipper than last time I saw you.”

Bruce snorts. Never in his life has he been described as 'chipper'. “Sure.”

“You and Foster made up then?”

“Yeah.”

“Thank God,” Tony mutters, turning back to his stirring. “I thought you were going to mope around here forever.”

Bruce screws up his face and sets his jaw, but it's true. It's true and Tony's right, he's an absolute nightmare to be around. Does Tony have to be so _smug_ about it, though? Pepper tuts.

“Tony,” he says.

“Uh huh?”

“I'm... sorry.”

Tony lays the spoon down against the side of the pan and looks at him again. “What did you break?”

“Tony,” Pepper murmurs.

Bruce smiles. “Noth—ing. I'm... sorry... being asshole. For being.”

“You're gonna need to be more specific there, Brucie.”

“ _Tony_ ,” Pepper repeats, and leans over to swat his arm. Tony clicks his tongue.

Bruce crosses his arms over his chest. “Table,” he says. “Yelling. Pun—ching walls.”

“Oh, that,” Tony says, and waves a hand. “Whatever, I'm rich, it's not a big deal.”

“Still. Thanks for... caring...” He trails off and clears his throat. “Both of... you. I really, I could-dent...”

“You don't need to thank us,” Pepper says.

“Oh yeah, yeah. Feelings and shit.” Tony holds out his arm and gestures for Bruce to come closer. “Manly hug, bring it in.” 

Bruce laughs and comes within grabbing distance. Tony wraps his arm around Bruce's shoulders and tugs him in, smacking him on the back.

“Okay, God, ugh, don't touch me,” he adds after a moment and pushes Bruce away again. Bruce grins.

Pepper hops off the counter and touches his shoulder.

“'m sorry for...” He shrugs. Breaking her things? Ignoring her in her own home? Acting like a toddler?

“Don't worry about it,” she says and hugs him too. He pats her on the back and sighs. “We're happy you're here,” she murmurs quietly and steps back.

Tony picks up the spoon again. “So... _Jane_. What's going on with _that_?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning:** ableist slur. 
> 
> Also, this chapter got much longer than I intended it to be.

_Eight months_. He was shot eight long months ago, though he only really remembers the last four or so and even that's a dicey prospect, sometimes. Remembering what he had for lunch by dinnertime is often stretching it.

He does recall that last time he saw Garfield he made a complete fool of himself in front of Jane and Tony and everyone else who happened upon the scene. He expects now that he's appropriately doped up, he won't react quite so poorly to mild condescension.

“Ready?” Tony asks from the kitchen door.

Bruce is wearing mismatched socks and pants that are too tight for him. He's as ready as he'll ever be.

There are no scans today, which he's grateful for, because the last time he had it done, he was terrified. It was nothing, he just had to lie down in a tube for a few minutes and be x-rayed, but being alone and being enclosed in such a tight space made his heart pound like a drum. He's never been overly fond of small spaces, but he could keep himself in check before. Now he can't seem to keep a lid on anything and he freaked out and flailed in the tube more than a little before the technician let him go back to Jane and Tony.

Today Garfield just tests his reflexes and shines lights in his eyes before sitting him down to talk.

“How's progress going with your aphasia?”

“It's... 'kay,” he says.

“Dr McCarthy says you've been making quite promising progress in the last few weeks.”

Bruce glances at Tony, who raises his eyebrows slightly and smiles.

“Yes,” Bruce says. Garfield looks at him as if he expects more, so he swallows and adds, “Get-ting... better.”

Garfield nods. “Your new medication seems to be having a positive effect on your mood, as well.”

“Yes,” he repeats and tries to smile. Constantly tired, hungry, and having intense (and intensely sexual) dreams put him in _such_ a good mood.

Garfield lets them go soon after and Tony drives them straight back home. Bruce has been trying to make more of an effort recently to not slink back into his room and go to sleep, so he sits down on the couch with Tony, while Tony scrolls through his phone and relates funny news stories to Bruce. It's nice to do something halfway normal, 'shoot the shit' with his friend, although Bruce doesn't do much shooting at all, just sits and laughs a little every now and then.

After a while JARVIS announces that Jane is coming up and asks if he should he let her in. Bruce sits forward a little too quickly and Tony snorts.

“Yep, let her up. Don't think I've got much of a choice in the matter.” He shoots a sly look at Bruce. 

Bruce pointedly looks away.

The elevator doors open and Jane steps out. 

“Hey, how did your appointment go?” she asks as she comes into the room.

“Good,” he says. “He... happy. Pro—gress.” He sighs and shrugs his shoulders.

She smiles. “That's great. I have a present for you, it's up in my suite.”

“Oh ho,” Tony murmurs under his breath.

Bruce clicks his tongue and pushes himself up off the couch.

“Be back for dinner!” Tony calls.

Bruce rolls his eyes and Jane grins and reaches out to take hold of his sleeve. She lets go when they get into the elevator and blushes a little, but keeps smiling as she watches the numbers going down.

“What... give me?” he asks, and bites back another sigh.

She wiggles her eyebrows. “Hold on, you'll see in a minute.”

They get off at her floor and he follows her to her suite. He wonders what it could possibly be. 'A present in her apartment' does sound like the kind of line Tony would use on a woman (or would have, back in the day), but to think anything like that would just add fuel to his delusional fire.

Once they're in the apartment, she walks over to the couch and picks something up. “Close your eyes!”

He closes the door behind him then dutifully closes his eyes and waits. He hears Jane walk a little closer to him then stop.

“Okay, you can open them!”

He opens his eyes and looks at the box she's holding in her hands. There's some writing on it and a picture of... jigsaw pieces. A jigsaw puzzle? He tries not to screw up his face, but all he can think of is his therapist telling him he needs to play 'games' to boost his cognitive abilities. The games were always embarrassingly childish and humiliating. Tony told him that he used to play them quite happily after he woke up from the coma, but he barely remembers anything about those first months.

Jane's face falls a little and her eyebrows draw together. “It's uh...” She looks down at it and hums. “I saw it in a shop window, it's got seven hundred and fifty pieces, five extra pieces, and no edges. It's supposed to be impossible to complete. I thought, um, we could put it together. I guess, uh, we'll have to do it on the floor...”

Bruce comes closer and smiles. Trust Jane to buy an impossible game for a brain-damaged man with a long history of anger issues and mental health problems. It's great.

“Okay,” he says.

“Yeah?” she says hopefully.

He grins. “Yeah.”

They spend a couple of hours at it, sitting on the floor in front of Jane's couch. She has to prop herself up with cushions and Bruce asks, to the extent that he can, if she's okay like that. She waves him off and starts sorting through the pieces. They only get ten pieces all connected up together before JARVIS calls them up to the penthouse for dinner with the message that Jane's invited too. Jane puffs and struggles to get up off the floor, and Bruce leans down to help her. He has to slip his arms around her and pull her up as if he's pulling her into a hug. The top of her head hits his chin, snapping his teeth shut on his tongue.

“Oh! Are you okay?” she asks, clutching at his arm.

He laughs and rubs at his chin. “Fine. Didn't... blood.” 

She smiles back and rubs his arm for a second before picking up her cane and turning towards the door.

Tony has a slightly sinister look on his face when they get back to the penthouse. He hustles them over to the table set up with three plates of curry.

“Why face?” he asks as he pulls out a chair for Jane.

“I hate to break it to you, but everyone has a face, Bruce,” Tony says with a sly grin.

Bruce narrows his eyes. “Uh huh.”

“Pill's on the table,” Tony says, pointing to the pill set beside Bruce's plate.

“Mm,” Bruce murmurs and sits down. He picks up the pill and washes it down with water, then goes back to eyeballing Tony.

“Okay, okay!” Tony says, and bounces on his toes. “I've held off long enough. I've got news.”

“Mm,” Bruce murmurs again, and glances at Jane. News from Tony is never a good thing.

“A certain Dr Ross is coming to New York soon,” Tony says with a grin.

Bruce feels his stomach drop out. “What?”

“Betty's coming to visit?” Jane asks.

“Yeah, in a month. She's here to give a lecture at a conference, she just called to tell me. She'll be here for two days.”

Bruce stares at Tony for a moment, then looks at Jane. His stomach gurgles. He hasn't had any contact with Betty since he started speaking again. Trying to speak on the phone sends him into spirals of anxiety and he was just so embarrassed at the state he was in that he never tried to initiate any contact. And she respected the distance he was putting between them, or else was relieved at it.

Jane's brow is crinkling up with a frown. “Are you okay?” 

“Um... Yeah. Uh, yeah, yeah. Is she... here?” He taps his fingers against the table. “Stay—ing?”

“Is Betty staying in the tower? No, she's going to be at a hotel,” Tony says. “Is that okay?”

“Mm, yeah,” he says, and looks down at his untouched food.

“Are you happy you're going to get to see her?”

“Yeah...”

Tony taps him on the shoulder. “Maybe you should tell your face that, then.”

“Oh, mm.” He looks up at Tony and smiles. “Yeah. Happy.”

Tony raises his eyebrows but doesn't say anything. Jane clears her throat and Bruce looks back over at her.

“It's great news,” she says with a slight smile on her face.

“Yeah,” he says, and takes a breath. “It is.”

Later, after dinner's finished and Jane's gone, Bruce goes to his bedroom. He ends up in front of his mirror, clothes off, staring at himself. Betty can't see him in the state he's in, the state he's let himself get into. There's extra weight clinging to his stomach and hips, his face has rounded out, his hair is starting to curl against the nape of his neck for want of a haircut. He can't read or write, he can barely speak... She can't see him like this.

He has to do something about this. He _is_ going to do something about this.

 

-

He forces himself out of bed at eight thirty the next morning, no more sleeping away the afternoon. Tony looks at him like he has two heads when he walks out into the living room and almost has a heart attack when Bruce picks up a banana for breakfast instead of toast, or Cocoa Puffs, or last night's leftovers. Tony keeps eyeing him as he gets out the flashcards that McCarthy gave him months ago and sits down at the kitchen table to practice.

He spends a couple of hours at it, until his head starts to ache and he has to take some Ibuprofen before heading down to the gym. Tony continues to look at him like he's an alien imposter until he's out the door.

Bruce has never been to gym, not even a home one, and he's never stepped on a piece of gym equipment in his life. At high school he got special permission to skip gym so that he could take some more AP classes – and probably also because some of the boys in the class always managed to 'accidentally' injure him somehow and Susan kicked up a fuss about it.

He tries the treadmill first and it's not too bad, it's not like trying to climb up that damn rope in middle school.

“Hey,” Jane calls from the door, “Tony said you were down here.”

He looks over at her and smiles. “Hi.”

“Hey,” she repeats and walks into the room. “I was going to see if you wanted to play around with the puzzle but I guess you're busy.” She pauses and her brow twitches a little. “Tony says you got up early, had a banana for breakfast, and practised with your flashcards for two hours.”

“Yeah,” he says.

“Is this about Betty coming?”

He sighs and jabs at the button that makes the treadmill go faster.

“You know she just wants to see you, right? It doesn't matter what you look like.” She purses her mouth. “I mean... That sounded bad, I didn't mean... uh...”

Bruce laughs and shakes his head slightly. “Know what you mean. But... want better.” He shrugs.

“Okay,” Jane says, and glances at the treadmill next to his. “I guess I could join you, David said I should try to do some exercise. I've been lying and saying I am.”

She walks around to the back of the treadmill and leans her cane against the wall before stepping on it. She sets it to a slow speed and braces her arms against the sides as she begins to walk.

“This brings back memories,” she says.

“Why?”

She tips one corner of her mouth up. “When I first started physio, I had to hold myself up on bars to walk two steps. Between that and the wheelchair, I got some pretty good upper arm strength going for a while.” She glances at him. “You never had to do any of that, though. You hopped straight out of bed. I have to admit, I got really jealous about that.”

Bruce smiles. “'m jea—lous of...” He pokes the side of her head. “Brain.”

She clicks her tongue and swats him away. “Oh shush, you're still a genius, don't get _too_ self-deprecating.”

“Mm,” he murmurs and jabs at machine again, running faster.

“Show off,” Jane mutters under her breath, and he laughs.

He starts to sweat after twenty minutes and Jane starts to pant and huff, reaching across herself to clutch at her side.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah, just a, ah, ow, cramp. Maybe I'll stop...” She turns the treadmill off and slowly steps off the machine, stumbling to one side as she reaches for her cane.

“Okay?” he repeats, turning to look back at her.

“I'm fine,” she says, sounding winded, and stumbles over to a bench to sit down.

“Sure?”

She takes a breath and smiles. “Yeah, yeah, you keep going, I know you want to show off.”

He grins and turns the speed up again, then turns it back down a couple of minutes later. He doesn't want to go crazy or anything.

After another twenty minutes, he starts to tire, and dials the speed down until it's off. Sweat is starting to seep into the collar of his t-shirt and under his armpits. He stretches his arms over his head until his shoulders pop. His t-shirt rides up in the process and he tugs it back down quickly, smiling at Jane sheepishly. She has kind of a funny expression on her face for a second before she clears her throat.

“Are you hungry?”

“Yeah,” he says.

“Do you want to go out for lunch?”

He opens his mouth. His instinct is to say no, always no to going outside of the tower and having people see him, especially after the museum, but if he wants to get himself together for Betty, he needs to stop being such a damn coward. “Yeah. But change first.” He tugs at the bottom of his t-shirt and grimaces.

“Good thinking,” Jane says with a smile.

-

It takes a few days for everyone to get used to a less sloth-like Bruce; everyone being Jane, Tony, and Pepper (and perhaps JARVIS, who expresses some concern about the amount of time Bruce spends on the treadmill). Jane starts quizzing him while he exercises, making him repeat words and sentences to her; she doesn't try the treadmill herself again. He stops eating eat out of the fridge and starts going out more with Jane or Tony. He still doesn't like it, the people, the noise. He still cringes when cars backfire and people yell in the street, but he's outside, and that's what counts.

His writing doesn't get any better, in fact it gets worse, more illegible, and his hand cramps even more when he tries to use a pen. But that's okay, Betty won't be seeing his handwriting anyway. His speech is getting better, he can speak in full sentences if he concentrates really hard.

Two weeks in, he goes up to Jane's suite in the late morning and knocks on the door. No answer. He knocks again.

“I'm coming!” she calls in a strained voice. 

It takes her another couple of minutes to make it to the door, and when she opens it she looks pale and out of breath.

“Hey,” she says thinly, leaning her weight against the door frame.

“You okay?”

“Fine,” she says shortly. “What is it?” She clears her throat. “I mean, what do you want? I mean...” She sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Sorry.”

Bruce smiles. “I was won—der--ing if you wanted to... go see... a movie?”

“Oh,” she says, “um...”

“It's okay if you don't.”

“No, no, I want to, I, uh, I've just had kind of a bad morning. Do you want to come in?”

“Okay,” he says. 

She shuffles back to let him pass by her and close the door behind him. When she lets go of the door, she stumbles to one side, banging into the wall. Bruce reaches out and grabs her arm to steady her.

“You okay?”

“Ugh, no,” she murmurs, and clutches at his arm. “Can you help me to the couch?”

“Yeah,” he says, and wraps his arm around her waist. She hisses between her teeth as he helps her over to the couch, and he lowers her down carefully. “Leg?” he asks.

She leans forward and rubs it. “Isn't it always?”

“Should you go doctor? To a doctor?”

She sighs. “They'll just say the same thing as always, 'you need to exercise it more, it takes time to heal, the muscle damage was extensive, but ohhh no painkillers are addictive just pop a couple of Advil and go for a walk'.”

“Oh,” Bruce says. “I'm sorry.”

She sighs and shrugs. “It's fine.”

“Mm. Wanna stay in?”

“Yeah,” she says with a smile. “I don't think I can handle going outside today, I'm sorry.”

“'sokay,” he says. He sits down beside her and clasps his hands in his lap. He can feel the tremors in his hands and starts twitching his fingers to compensate. The doctor said that the twitching would probably never go away, but Bruce guesses he's lucky that it's only his hands and not his face too. Because his face is so lovely to look at normally...

“What d'you wanna do?” he asks.

“I don't know, there's not a lot to do here,” she says, smiling slightly. “We could work on the puzzle, I guess.” She nods to the jigsaw puzzle near the couch; in two weeks they've managed to put together about thirty pieces. 

“Okay,” he says.

“I'm not going to be able to sit on the floor though,” she adds. “Give me a pile and I'll sort them out on the couch.”

He sits on the floor while she sits behind him on the couch. It's kind of like sitting at his mother's feet, but that's okay, those are some of few good memories that he has of his early childhood. They don't get much further with the puzzle but Jane quizzes him intermittently; he can count to thirty without getting confused now and he doesn't slur his words as much as he used to. Betty is arriving in one week and he thinks he might almost be ready for her to see him.

-

He goes for a run with Tony the next day in Central Park. Running on a bouncy treadmill and running on hard concrete are two completely different experiences and although it's nearing the end of October and there's a strong breeze, he's panting and drenched in sweat. Tony, of course, is in ridiculous shape and Bruce falls behind after five minutes. Tony slows down to compensate which makes Bruce feel like the out of shape slob he is, and he still has to stop after twenty minutes.

“You okay there, buddy?” Tony asks.

Bruce presses his hand to his side and gasps.

“Water?” Tony says, waving a bottle under his nose. Bruce makes to grab it and Tony pulls it away. “Only kidding,” he says, and pushes it into Bruce's hand.

“Fuck... you...” Bruce pants, and drains half to bottle in one go.

“You're feeling spicy today.”

Bruce rolls his eyes and pours some water on his face. He rubs some of it on the back of his neck and grimaces as it rolls down his back.

“Maybe you're, you know, pushing yourself too hard,” Tony says.

“You do it,” he says.

“Yeah, but I'm Iron Man; I try to keep it on the down low, but I train pretty damn hard. Plus, I wasn't exactly a slouch beforehand, even if my liver was a little pickled for a while there.”

Bruce sighs deeply and stares at him.

“I wasn't suggesting that _you_ are, and anyway I didn't really mean just the running, I meant everything, the studying, the diet, all the aggressive self-improvement. I mean, I'm not knocking it, I've gone through some major self-improvement jags myself , but I know that sometimes they're, uh, just a bandaid for bigger problems. You know what I mean?”

“No,” Bruce says.

Tony sighs. “Of course not. Last person to the lake buys lunch.”

-

Bruce doesn't weigh himself until the night before Betty arrives. Of the twenty pounds he's put on, he's only lost seven, and that last pound probably came off today because he's been far too nervous to eat anything. His heart sinks a little, but at least he's toned up a bit more and his clothes fit better.

He sits on his bed and runs through his flashcards again before crawling under the covers and trying to get some sleep.

Unsurprisingly, he doesn't get much. His hands twitch like crazy and he stares up at the ceiling until the shafts of light from the windows start to morph into strange shapes. He knows he's hallucinating, but it's quite pleasant so he goes with it until he eventually passes out for a couple of hours.

She's arriving in the late afternoon, which gives him plenty of time to 'primp', as Tony puts it. He showers and shaves and tries to style his newly cut hair with one of Tony's products, which leads to a second shower. He dresses in a nice shirt and pants and cuts and cleans his fingernails. He flosses his teeth and gargles with the blue mouthwash. He trims errant hairs from his eyebrows and his nose and runs water through his hair to tame it.

“You're looking very dapper,” Tony says with a grin when Bruce exits the bathroom.

Bruce mumbles vaguely and puts his hands in his pockets.

“Aw, you're adorable,” Tony says, and pinches his cheek. Bruce slaps his hand away. “Jane's in the living room,” he adds.

“Thanks,” he says and shuffles out of the hallway as Tony keeps smiling at him.

Jane's sitting on the couch looking at her phone. Her soft brown hair is fanned out across her shoulders and her brow is slightly creased as she reads whatever's on her screen. She looks beautiful.

“Hey,” he says.

“Oh!” she says, and looks up. “Hi. Oh, you look nice.”

Bruce puts his hands back into his pockets and smiles as he walks over. “Thanks. You too.”

She ducks her head for a second and clears her throat. “Thanks. How are you feeling? Excited?”

Bruce sits down beside her and sighs a little. “Nervous.”

“That's okay,” she says. “That's to be expected. You don't have anything to worry about though.”

“Mm.”

Jane leans towards him. “Mm,” she mimics. “That's your answer for everything.”

“Mm,” he repeats and smiles.

She laughs a little and puts her hand on his knee. “It'll be fine.”

Bruce feels his cheeks begin to warm and takes a breath as Tony walks back out into the living room.

“The eagle has left the airport, I repeat, the eagle has left the airport!”

Bruce looks around at him and frowns. Jane removes her hand.

“My driver just picked Ross up,” Tony clarifies, “she'll be here in about half an hour.”

“Okay,” Bruce says, and clasps his hands in his lap. His arms tremor a little.

Jane lays her hand on his wrist, the pads of her fingers brushing against the bone. “It'll be fine,” she murmurs.

“Okay,” he repeats.

He waits in twitching anticipation for twenty five minutes, until Tony suggests that they go down to the garage to wait for the car to pull in. Bruce's hands are twitching like crazy, moving from side to side like he's conducting a really bad orchestra. Jane elbows him gently.

“They're approaching the building now,” Tony says, looking at his phone. He points at the garage door. “That door's going to open in... five, four, three, two, one.”

The door stays closed. Tony wrinkles his nose and looks back at his phone. “Three, two, one... One?”

The door starts rolling up.

“Fucking GPS,” Tony mutters, and stuffs the phone back in his pocket. 

It brings a smile to Bruce's face for moment, until he sees the car pull up in front of them. He takes a breath and holds it. Jane slides her fingers around his wrist. The driver gets out of the front and walks around to the open the back door. Betty steps out slowly, her long legs clad in jeans and sneakers, her hair tied up in a ponytail. His heart starts thumping like crazy. Jane squeezes his wrist.

“Hi,” she says, her gaze resting on him.

“Hey,” he mumbles.

“It's nice to see you again, Betty,” Jane says.

“Yeah, long time, no see,” Tony adds. Jane clicks her tongue.

“Hi, Bruce,” she says again, and takes a step forward, lifting her arms as if she's going to hug him. Jane lets go of his wrist.

“Mommy?” a voice calls from inside of the car.

Everyone freezes for a second before Jane murmurs, “uhhh...” and Tony mutters, “fuck,” under his breath. Bruce takes half a step back. Betty looks at him for a moment before turning back to the car.

“I think I should get him to the hotel, he's getting cranky,” a man's voice inside the car says. Samson. Leonard Samson, Betty's _husband_. Betty leans into the car and there's some quiet discussion for a minute as the three of them stand there. Jane looks over at Tony and hisses something. Bruce doesn't understand what she said, but he can take a pretty good guess.

“...didn't know she'd actually _bring_...” Tony murmurs back.

Betty steps back from the car and closes the door. She blows a kiss through the window and the driver pulls back out of the garage. Bruce squeezes his shaking hands to fists.

Betty turns back to them; Tony and Jane's bickering fades away to nothing and Tony clears his throat.

“Well, I think you guys have got some catching up to do,” Tony says, and throws his arm around Jane's shoulders. “You guys can use the penthouse, me and Foster are going to go play in the workshop.”

“Uh, yeah, we're going to do that,” Jane says.

Betty looks at Bruce with her eyebrows raised slightly and a smile on her face.

Bruce shrugs, then clears his throat and nods. “Okay.”

The elevator ride up is excruciating. Tony and Jane get off ten floors early, for the workshop, and Jane waves a little as the elevator doors slide closed on Bruce and Betty. Betty glances at Bruce and smiles a little.

“You look really good,” she says.

He couldn't look much worse than the last time she saw him, really, unless he was dead. He swallows. “You too,” he says. The elevator doors open into the penthouse.

“Wow,” Betty murmurs, stepping out into the living area. Bruce stays in the elevator a second longer, trying to get a grip on himself. He knew she had a husband and a kid, he already knew that, he knows that she's moved on, that they're in ridiculously different places in life now. Nothing was ever going to happen. Nothing's changed, there's no time machine to step into and go back in time ten, fifteen years.

He shakes his head and follows her out.

“This place is really nice,” she says.

“Yeah,” he says. “Do you want... sit?” he asks, gesturing to the couch.

“Yeah,” she says, “thanks.”

He follows her to the couch and sits down beside her, keeping a good few inches between them.

“I'm sorry about before,” she says, “I probably should have dropped them off at the hotel first, I wasn't thinking.”

“'sokay,” he mumbles.

She nods and looks at him for a moment before taking a breath. “So, Tony told me that you've been working really hard with your speech therapist.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Uh, it's... better. I... still can't...” He makes a writing motion with his hand, then makes a book motion with his palms.

“Read and write?” Betty says. “You'll get it.”

He won't; maybe one day he'll be able to write a few words, sign his name, but he knows he's never going to be able to read again, not when words on a page make no sense to him. But he doesn't need to tell her that, he guesses, so he just smiles and nods.

“Do, uh...” He runs his fingers through his hair and clears his throat. “Do you... want eat?” He points towards the kitchen.

Betty shakes her head. “No, thanks, I'm not hungry.”

“Okay.” His fingers have started to twitch without him noticing and he clasps them together for a moment, then puts his hands under his thighs. “Sorry,” he murmurs.

“Don't apologise. Does that happen a lot?”

He ducks his head. “Yeah. Doctor... said... not bad.”

“You mean like it's nothing to worry about?”

“Yeah.” His arms start to tremor and he bites back a sigh. He should know by now that when his body wants to twitch, there's not a hell of a lot he can do to stop it. He gets up, shakes his arms out, and begins to pace. Sometimes it helps a little to move, to give his brain something else to do. “Sorry,” he repeats.

She smiles a little, though her mouth is tight. “So, what's it like living with Tony. I can't imagine he's the greatest room mate ever.”

“He's... okay. He... cooks and... drives appointments. Don't see him much... Pepper's home.”

“Well, that's good,” she says, still smiling, but he can see it. Pity. Pity and discomfort at listening to him butcher the English language. Pepper looks the same way sometimes, even Tony. He clenches and unclenches his hands for a moment, then runs his fingers through his hair. They lapse into silence.

“Um,” he murmurs. God, he hasn't felt this nervous around Betty since he was twenty five and asking her out for the first time. “Do-- are...”

Betty watches him patiently while he struggles for words. “Are you...” Are you excited about your lecture, he wants to ask. “L-l...”

Betty's brow creases up a little before she smiles again and nods for him to continue. 

“Llll... Egg...” He groans and covers his face with his hands.

“It's okay,” she says, “just take it slow.” 

He bangs his knuckles against his forehead. He _is_ taking it slow, _he_ is slow. He's as slow as it gets.

“Leg... shur...?” he forces out. He sighs again and shakes his head.

“My lecture? I got tickets for you and Jane, and Tony and Pepper, too.”

He nods. It's close enough to his question.

“Do you think Jane will want to come? I requested the seat just in case.”

“Yeah,” he says, “prob'ly.”

“Good,” she says, and glances down at her lap. “That's good....” She takes a breath and looks at him. “Bruce, there's something I want to... tell you. Can you sit down for a minute?”

“Okay,” he says, and sits back down.

“I, uh...” She clicks her tongue and rubs her eyebrows. Bruce starts twitching again, his shoulders moving up and down. Betty purses her mouth. “There's no good way to tell you this... I'm pregnant.”

He opens his mouth and twitches some more.

“Bruce?”

“Uh,” he says, and closes his mouth. She's pregnant, she's having a child, another child; another child that isn't his...

“I'm... three months along...” she says quietly. She reaches over to touch his hand and he twitches really hard, involuntarily pulling away from her. “Sorry,” she murmurs, not meeting his gaze.

“'sgood... Con—grats...” he mumbles.

“I didn't want to... drop this on you the first time after not seeing you for so long, but I didn't want to not tell you and have you find out later, you know?”

“Yeah...” he says. His hands are really starting to shake. “Yeah... Uh... uh... 'm... uh... ti—ed.”

Betty's face falls for an instant and he feels a pang in his gut, which adds on to all the other strange feelings in his stomach. “Yeah,” she says softly, “I should get going, I still need to cram for tomorrow.”

“Okay,” he mumbles.

She gets up off the couch and Bruce stares at her for second before something in his brain tells him to stand up and follow her to the elevator. She stops at the door and turns to him; he freezes in place.

“I'll see you at the lecture tomorrow?” she asks with a hopeful tone to her voice.

“Uh... yeah...” he murmurs.

“Okay, good...” She reaches out to touch him, then seems to think better of it before her hand brushes his arm. “I'll see you tomorrow.”

“Okay,” he mumbles. 

Betty stares at him for a moment longer, then pushes the button for the elevator. The door slides open and she steps inside. “Bye.”

“Mm,” he hums. The door slides closed and he's left there, staring at his warped image in the shiny metal door. He stares at the weirdly stretched out body of the person in the mirror, then turns around and walks back to the couch. His limbs feel stiff and inflexible and he can't make himself sit back down. He can feel his arms shake and the room around him starts to blur. There's a pressure in his head that feels like Hulk, but Hulk stays silent as Bruce's head is drilled. His vision flicks in and out like a broken TV; indescribable rage welling up inside of him, this demonic presence in his head. But the demon isn't Hulk any more, Hulk's not here any more, Hulk wasn't there when they needed him. It's all him, all him...

He digs his fingernails into his scalp and screams. If he could tear his skin off, if he could break through bone and dig into his brain he could finish the job HYDRA started. He could be free, everyone could be free.

Except Betty... Betty's _already_ free. Betty's been _free_ of him for years.

He kicks out blindly and something crashes and shatters. The sound is like nails on a chalkboard to him, but he lashes out for more, smashing something else against the hard floor.

“I have-- Mr Star-- Foster,” he hears JARVIS say, as his hearing flicks in and out like his vision.

He punches a wall, punches and punches as his knuckles turn slick with blood. It doesn't hurt. Nothing hurts except his brain, his brain pounds and pounds to the rhythm of his fists on the wall.

“Bruce? Bruce!” Tony yells. Bruce squeezes his eyes shut and bangs his head against the wall. Tony and Jane's voices fade in and out.

“Don't... tou-- him.”

“What--”

“If he--”

“Get the--”

Suddenly arms are hugging him from behind, pinning his arms to his sides. He fights against it, but the grip on him is strong. Tony's grip...

“Okay, man, time to calm down,” he says, and starts wrestling him away from the wall. He's holding Bruce so tight, he's crushing his arms, he's lifting him off his feet and carrying him away, he's putting his hand over Bruce's mouth, 'if you keep screaming, you're going to join her', he's suffocating Bruce until his fingers turn blue...

“Give him the pill,” the doctor says, “hold his legs.”

Straps snap around his wrists and ankles and hold him tight as he struggles and screams. Daddy's going to leave him in this place forever, he told him he would, he promised he would if Bruce didn't stop crying. Crying's a sign of weak mind. A weak, broken mind.

“Give him the pill!”

“I can't, his jaw's locked up!”

Bruce gets one arm free and hits out, claws at whatever skin he can find, until a hand grabs his and holds it tight. 

“ _Bruce_ ,” a voice says, and another hand touches his face gently, cupping his chin. He opens his eyes to slits.

Mommy was always so beautiful...

“Open your mouth, Bruce.”

He opens his mouth and she places the little pill on his tongue and brings a glass of water his lips. She pours some in and a little escapes from the corner of his mouth. She wipes it away with her sleeve, and he swallows, pill and all. She smiles and puts the glass of water down on the ground. Mommy always used to give him a cookie after he took pills. A cookie and an extra bedtime story, so long as Daddy wasn't home.

He turns his head slightly and looks at the man holding him. It's not a doctor, and it's not... his father. It's not... Brian.

“Feeling better, buddy?” Tony says. He's wrapped around Bruce like an octopus, arms around his chest, leg in his lap. Bruce blinks and looks back to... Jane. Oh.

“That was a valium,” she says, “you're going to start feeling pretty spaced out soon, okay?”

Bruce nods slowly. He already is, his brain is starting to float away from him. Tony lets go of him and swings his leg out of his lap.

“I'll get something to clean up your hand. And your head...”

Bruce looks at him, then looks down at his hands. He's bleeding...

“Mm...Din... bluh...?” he mumbles, and frowns. He rubs at his forehead and comes away with more blood. His head hurts...

“We didn't get any of your blood on us,” Jane says.

“'kay,” he sighs. 

Jane leans forward and takes his good hand again. “How are you feeling?”

He nods and stares at his bloodied hand.

“Okay,” she says, and squeezes his hand.

The other side of the couch dips down and he looks back at Tony, who reaches up with a wad of cotton wool and starts dabbing at Bruce's forehead. The cotton comes away bloody and Tony pours something onto a clean piece and lifts his hand again.

“This is going to sting,” he murmurs.

It does, but Bruce is too out of it to react. All he does is blink and watch Tony's goatee loom close to his face.

“So, you wanna tell us what happened?” Tony's goatee asks. Bruce smiles. “Bruce?” the goatee pushes.

Bruce frowns. What did happen? What happened... He got shot, he got a massive dose of radiation and almost killed Betty...

That's not what Tony means...

“Mm... Beh... Beh...” He swallows and rubs his mouth. Tony finishes cleaning his forehead and turns his attention to Bruce's hand. He glances up as Bruce struggles to say one word. At least he's got the valium as an excuse today. “She... she... preh... preh... mm...”

Tony raises an eyebrow and Bruce tries to shrug but he's not sure that he manages it.

“Do you mean, uh... pregnant?” Jane says slowly.

Bruce looks at her and nods.

“Shit,” Tony mutters. “And with her bringing her kid... That's rough, I'm sorry.”

“Mm...”

Tony sticks a plaster over of Bruce's scraped knuckles and smooths it down. “I think it's time for you to go to bed.”

“Mmhm...”

“Okay,” Tony says, and puts one arm around Bruce's back. He picks up Bruce's arm and puts it around his shoulders. “Up we go.”

The whole world swims as Tony pulls him up onto his feet. It makes him think of nights spent in someone's basement, a bowl in his lap and the world fuzzy and quiet for a few blessed hours. Sometimes Betty was with him; he'd lie back against her and she'd stroke his hair and sing along to the radio. She sounded like an angel.

“Say goodnight to Jane,” Tony says, tucking his fingers against Bruce's side.

Bruce waves at her and she waves back. “I'll see you in the morning,” she says.

God, she's pretty...

Tony mostly carries him to his bedroom and deposits him on the bed. “One day we're going to do this for a fun reason,” he says.

Bruce snorts and buries his face in his pillow. Tony leans over him and starts unbuttoning his shirt. Bruce giggles into the pillow.

“Don't worry, I'm not trying to get at the goods, I'm just making you more comfortable... Christ, you did your belt tight.” He releases the buckle and Bruce breathes out with a sigh. “All right, get some sleep, big guy,” he adds, and pats him on the shoulder.

The room fades into darkness and Bruce's brain goes dark too, finally.

-

His mouth tastes like ass when he finally comes round the next day. He stays curled up in a ball for an indefinable stretch of time, half conscious but mostly asleep, before things start to come back to him.

Oh God.

Oh _God_.

He groans into the pillow and painstakingly rolls over onto his back. He opens his eyes to slits and cringes at the little light that's shining into the room. His head is pounding like a jackhammer.

“Ugh,” he mumbles and rubs a hand over his face. Something rough slides across his face and he lifts his hand to look. Of course, the plaster. Because he beat his hand bloody on a wall. Fuck. He peels a corner of the plaster off and peers underneath. The cuts have scabbed over, so he tears the plaster off and drops it on the night stand. His knuckles are sore but it's nothing compared to his head.

He pulls himself up slowly and looks down at himself. His shirt is open, as is his belt and fly... because Tony had to undress him like a baby. Tony, who Bruce thought was his _fucking father_ , or a doctor at that... that place the social worker took him once. God, he was hallucinating like crazy last night.

He eases himself off the bed and very slowly changes out of last night's clothes and into a t-shirt and sweatpants, then opens his bedroom door and creeps out into the living room. Tony is across the room, his back turned to Bruce, holding a pallet loaded with thick white paste. Bruce looks at the wall Tony is standing in front of, which is smeared with the same white paste, and realises that Tony is repairing the wall that he damaged last night.

“Ugh,” he murmurs.

Tony glances over his shoulder and grins. “Enjoying my masterpiece? I figured I could probably do it myself, being a genius and all. Drywalling is a _lot_ harder than it looks.”

Bruce rubs his hand over his face and tries to smile. “'m sorry,” he mumbles.

“Is it really that bad?”

“ _Tony_.”

Tony puts down the pallet and wipes the back of his hand across his forehead, leaving a white smudge behind. “Okay, okay, I know. How are you feeling?”

Bruce shrugs. “Head hurts. A lot.”

“I'm shocked,” he deadpans.

“Mm...”

“You want some painkillers?”

“Yeah.” He twists his fingers together and winces a bit when he hits a sore knuckle. “Um... Is... is Pep—per... okay with...?”

Tony waves him off. “Ah, she's seen worse than a bashed wall.”

Bruce cringes. Yeah, she seen her favourite table smashed to pieces all over her living room floor.

“No, I meant... from me, you know like when I was an alcoholic ne'er do well,” Tony says quickly. “She's seen a lot.”

Bruce nods. “And... Jane...?”

“Yeah, she's fine. I'm pretty sure that if she hadn't been here last night, you'd have... uh, well... I'll tell you one thing, you're fucking strong. I wouldn't have thought it, you look so weedy...”

Bruce tips the corner of his mouth up. “Thanks.”

Tony smiles back. “I'll make you breakfast, okay?”

Bruce takes a breath and nods. “Thanks.”

Jane comes down a little while later and while Bruce is trying to mumble apologies she comes in for a hug. Her hair smells really nice and he lingers a little too long in the hug, his nose pressed against the hair that's fanning out across her temple.

Despite his better judgement – and Tony's and Jane's and probably Pepper's too – he decides to go to Betty's lecture. He said he would and he knows it's important to her, so he dresses up and arranges his hair in a way that disguises the cut on his forehead 

He starts twitching before they even get to the car. Jane takes his hand and holds it the entire way.

They arrive at NYU about twenty minutes before the lecture starts. Betty is going over notes in the corridor outside the hall and Leonard is beside her, holding Max. Bruce should have expected that.

“Hey, you okay with this?” Jane murmurs as they approach.

He takes a deep breath and nods.

The greetings are awkward and stilted but thankfully the auditorium is filling up and they start to shuffle in, bidding Betty good luck. They sit in a row of five, Bruce on one end, Leonard on the other with Max in his lap; he can hear the kid babbling about something. He squeezes his eyes shut and rubs his face.

Jane reaches over and takes his hand again, curling her fingers into his. 

The lecture begins and Betty puts up the first slide up. Bruce can't read it, of course, but there's a picture of the cellular structure of... something. She introduces her topic and at first he follows what she's saying, for the first five minutes he understands what's going on, but then it fades away. Her words get all jumbled in his head and try as he might he can't hold his attention on the podium for more than a minute at a time.

He remembers when they were younger, he was always her test audience when the professors she TAed for let her give lectures. He'd clap at the end and she'd tell him not to tease her, but he wasn't. She was always a great public speaker, always commanded the attention of people around her... except for him, now. He used to work on projects with her, co-author papers with her, lie in bed with her and argue about nature vs. nurture. He could keep pace with her at every step when they were young... now he can't even parse her sentences correctly.

He taps his fingers against his leg and twitches his foot as he tries to keep his mind on the lecture. There's a man sitting next to him, white, thinning hair, pot belly, vaguely familiar looking, who keeps glaring at Bruce's twitching. Being looked at only makes him worse though, and he starts rocking his head slightly. The man sighs loudly.

Jane leans forward and looks over at the man with a frown, then resettles her grip on his hand so that their forearms are pressed together.

About halfway through, Leonard excuses himself with Max, walking down the aisle and getting another sigh from Bruce's neighbour. Bruce manages to relax a little, knowing that they're not in the hall any more, but he still can't focus.

The lecture ends at some point and everyone starts clapping. The noise makes him cringe, but clapping gives him something with his hands that isn't twitching. When everyone starts getting up and shuffling out, the guy beside him glares at him and Jane clicks her tongue.

“Some people,” she says loudly.

Bruce smiles and the man shakes his head and walks away.

They regroup, minus Leonard and max, and track Betty down to where she's talking to a man in his mid fifties.

“Great lecture,” Tony says, “I didn't play Angry Birds once.”

“Well, that's a yardstick to measure things by,” Pepper says. “I enjoyed the lecture too, although I didn't understand very much of it.”

Betty smiles. “Thanks, I'm glad it rated higher than Angry Birds.”

“Well, just,” Tony says. “Did you see that your, uh...” He gestures towards the door.

“Oh yeah, I guess the lecture wasn't really three year old friendly.”

“I didn't know that you knew Tony Stark, Betty,” the man says.

“Friend of a friend,” Tony says.

The guy's gaze drifts over to Bruce and he looks him up and down. Bruce tries not to tense up, but he knows that he does because Jane gently takes his hand again. The guy frowns for a moment, then lifts his finger.

“Bruce Banner!” he says.

“Hi,” Bruce says.

The guy sticks out his hand. “Bernard Green, remember me?”

Bruce takes his hand and smiles. “Yeah,” he says. He doesn't, and he's not sure if the brain damage has anything to do with that one.

“I haven't seen you in... ten years?” Bernard says, staring him down. It feels like his gaze is burning a hole through Bruce's head. 

“Prob'ly,” he murmurs. He glances up and everyone seems to be grimacing to some extent or other. That makes him feel a little better.

“We thought... well, I think we all thought you'd _died_ ,” Bernard says. “I mean, until all that stuff with Captain America last year. I was shocked to hear about what had happened to you.”

Bruce nods. Maybe the one good thing about the shooting is that he hasn't given much thought to his lack of anonymity recently, it hasn't been up there on his list of priorities. Tony shielded him from a lot of the blow back after Steve and Natasha blew the lid of SHIELD, so Bruce didn't find it too hard to continue going about his life without being recognised. He's a pretty ordinary looking guy, people don't tend to look at him twice. But that doesn't stretch to former colleagues, he guesses.

“Have you met Dr Foster?” Tony says loudly, gesturing to Jane.

Bernard blinks a couple of times, then looks at her. “Oh... the name's familiar...”

“Jane had a paper published in _New Scientist_ about wormhole technology a couple of years ago,” Betty says.

“Uh... Oh!” Bernard's face lights up. “Thor's girlfriend!”

Jane stares back at him for a moment, her mouth a flat line. “Well, not any more,” she says.

Bernard glances at Bruce, then at their clasped hands. “I guess you moved on to bigger things... Betty, didn't you and Dr Banner used to be an item? Everyone thought you two were going to get married--”

“Okay!” Tony says brightly, and claps his hands together. “Sorry to run, Bernie, but we've got to get going if we're going to do that thing we were going to do.”

Tony spreads his arms and starts shepherding them away from 'Bernie', who looks kind of put out.

“Are you two okay?” Betty asks as they walk away.

Bruce nods and Jane rolls her eyes. “It's not the first time I've met a guy like that.”

Betty sighs. “Tell me about it.”

“Me too,” Pepper says.

Tony puffs out his chest. “Give me a list of their names.”

“No need, I dealt with them,” she says.

“Beautiful,” Tony says, and reaches out to cup her cheeks. 

She tuts and swats him away. “Not in public.”

It feels nice for a minute, everyone laughing and talking, Jane holding his hand. It feels good, like being among friends, which he guesses he is.

Then Leonard appears at the door with Max and waves. Bruce squeezes his eyes shut and bites his lips. When he opens his eyes again, Leonard is leaning in to kiss Betty's cheek, apologising for leaving the lecture. Bruce hears Tony mutter 'awkward' to Pepper.

“So, me and the little guy are pretty hungry,” Leonard says. “I was thinking that maybe we could go and get some dinner...?” He glances around at all of them and the group bursts into half-hearted excuses.

“Max is probably tired,” Betty says.

“We got that... that, uh, meeting in the morning, right?” Tony asks Pepper. “Gotta get my beauty sleep for that.”

“Yeah, we've got to be up pretty early...” Pepper replies.

“My leg... hurts,” Jane mutters.

“Okay,” Bruce says.

Everyone stops and looks around at him.

“'Okay' what?” Tony asks.

“Okay to... dinner,” he says. He can do this, this one thing for Betty, because who knows when he'll see her again after she leaves tomorrow.

“Oh, well, I guess a couple of hours won't hurt...” Tony says and the conversation reverses as everyone has a change of heart.

They pick a place nearby, which is busy but has room for six and a high chair. At this time of the evening anywhere's going to be busy, Bruce tells himself as someone bumps into him and the cacophony of voices presses in against him.

They're seated at a rectangular table, Tony and Pepper on either end, Bruce and Jane on one side and Betty, Leonard, and Max on the other. Bruce is next to Tony and directly across from Betty and the table is small enough that her feet knock against his when she shifts around. She smiles a little and he smiles back.

“You doing okay?” Tony asks quietly.

“Uh huh,” he says.

The waitress comes and hands out the menus and pulls out her notepad to take the drinks order. When she turns and looks at him expectantly, he clears his throat and says, “Just water, thanks.”

It comes out fairly smooth and he feels kind of proud of himself for a minute, until she's gone and everyone turns their attention to the menus. Bruce looks down at his closed one and taps his fingers against his leg. He didn't really think this through...

Jane scoots closer to him until their legs are pressed together and opens up her menu between the two of them. It's all unreadable to him.

“Do you want an appetiser?” she asks quietly.

“No,” he murmurs.

“Okay...” She runs her finger down the menu and hums for a moment. “Okay, they've got pasta, burgers, or soup.”

His previous attempts at eating with cutlery have been pretty humiliating and he doesn't like his chances in this sort of company, so he sighs and says, “Burgers.”

“Okay, so they've got... lamb, BLT, grilled chicken, salmon, beef, and cheese.” She's speaking quietly enough that probably only Tony can hear what they're talking about and he suddenly has an intense interest in his own menu, loudly commenting about how good all the food sounds.

“Mm... chick—en,” Bruce says.

“Do you want fries too?”

“Yeah.”

She smiles and closes her menu. “That sounds good, I think I'll get the same.” She puts her menu aside and scoots away a little but she's still closer than she was before. There's a murmur of conversation around the table that he can't follow and he starts tapping his fingers against his leg again. Jane's leg is still brushing against his and his fingers graze her jeans when he starts up. She glances at him, then reaches over and starts tapping her fingers against his leg too. It's oddly calming.

The waitress loops back round to the table after a few minutes and starts taking their orders. Bruce starts getting a little short of breath, thinking about how he's going to stumble over his order. 

When the waitress turns her attention to them, Jane leans over and says, “Can we get two grilled chicken burgers and... how large is your side of fries?”

The waitress mimes the size with hands, it seems fairly large.

Jane looks at him. “Do you mind if we share one? I don't think I'll be able to get through one on my own.”

“Sure,” he says.

“Great! One side of fries, please.”

Once the waitress collects up the menus and leaves, Bruce looks at Jane. She chose the same thing as him so that she could order for him without making it embarrassing, he realises, and his breath catches in his chest again, but for a completely different reason this time.

“Thanks,” he murmurs.

She smiles. “No problem.”

He keeps looking at her, though, and after a moment she widens her eyes jokingly and elbows him. He takes a breath and elbows her back.

“So, did you enjoy the lecture, Bruce?” Betty asks.

He freezes and stares at her for a second. “Yeah.”

There's a long, heavy pause at the table, all eyes turning to him. It seems like Betty realises her mistake because she clears her throat and smiles.

“That's great.”

“Uh...” he murmurs. He runs his fingers through his hair and tries to add to the conversation. “Are you... doing any more... leg—shurs?” 

“He talks funny,” Max announces as he works on a colouring book.

Bruce's stomach gurgles a little. _Re-tard_...

Betty flushes pink. “Max, that's not nice, say sorry!”

“'sokay,” Bruce mumbles. Jane grabs his hand and squeezes.

Max pouts and palms his red crayon. “Sorry,” he says, and starts stabbing at his book again.

“'sokay,” he repeats, though the kid isn't actually listening.

“I'm really sorry,” Betty says, colour high on her cheeks. She looks mortified, mortified that her son has said what everyone's thinking.

He nods and looks at his lap, he can't work up the energy to speak again. Jane drags her thumb across the back of his hand.

“So,” Jane says, “what's your hotel like?”

The food comes after another fifteen minutes and Bruce is relieved to have something to do with his hands. The waitress puts the basket of fries in between him and Jane but she only eats a handful before leaving the rest to him. He watches the rest of them as he eats; Tony and Pepper hold court, making everyone laugh, but the music and the people around them are too loud and Bruce can't understand what they're saying, he just pretends he does and smiles along with them. Max eats the small plate of pasta Betty ordered for him, he's better with a fork than Bruce is. He's a cute little kid, brown eyes, almost black hair, round face... He looks like he could be Bruce and Betty's son, and if things were different Bruce might wonder if he was. But they aren't. He knows that he and Betty will never share a life again, will never have the same experiences, never be a family. Not that he ever wanted a family... Did he? He can't even remember any more.

After a little while of him staring into space, Tony taps him on the knee and presses a pill into his hand under the table.

“Thanks,” he murmurs, and picks up his glass to take a drink of water. He takes the pill and glances at Jane's plate. She's eaten maybe half of her burger and left the rest untouched, her hands in her lap.

She looks at him and clears her throat. “Do you want it? I'm full.”

His stomach growls. Yes, he wants it and a hell of a lot more besides. These last few weeks have been miserable.

“Sure?”

She nods and puts it on his plate. “Better than me getting it boxed up, day old, cold burgers aren't much of a treat.”

“Okay. Thanks,” he says, and picks it up.

The incomprehensible conversation continues while he eats Jane's burger and after he's done. It might be ten minutes, or twenty or thirty, he can't tell. The music changes to a different, louder song and the ambient noise rises to match. He cringes and shifts in his seat, raising his shoulders up to his ears. It's so loud, it feels like his brain is rattling in his head. He presses one hand to his ear and squeezes his eyes shut.

Jane touches him lightly on the shoulder and when he looks at her she says something but he doesn't understand. Her mouth moves but that's all, her words mix in with all the sound around them. She frowns for a moment then leans in close and says next to his ear, “Do you want to go outside?”

She pulls back and he nods. She says something to the table, who are all looking at him, of course, and starts to get up. She has trouble getting out of her seat and Bruce tries to help but he feels pretty off balance too and has to grip the back of her chair as he offers her his arm to hold onto.

They weave through the tables and waiters carrying hot food and finally make it outside, where it's hardly quiet but it's cool and it isn't oppressive like the restaurant.

“Better?” Jane says.

“Yeah,” he murmurs and rubs a hand over his face. “Sorry. Thanks.”

“No, you're right, it was getting a little too much in there.”

He smiles a little. She always panders to his stupid fits.

He rubs his face again and yawns. “'m tired.”

“I'm not surprised, it's been a day.”

He sighs and leans against the building. “Yeah.”

“How are you doing with Betty and the kid and everything?”

“Not good,” he says. Jane nods and for some reason he continues. “He... looks me. Like me.”

Her eyebrows draw together. “Could... could he be...?”

Bruce snorts and shakes his head. “No. It just... makes me... sad.”

Jane's expression is unreadable for moment before she nods. “Yeah, lost opportunities and everything.”

“Lost everything,” Bruce corrects and snorts again.

“That's not true,” she says softly.

“Mm,” he murmurs, and shrugs. There's a crowd of people a few feet away, all of them smoking and chatting among themselves. He stares at them for a few minutes, until Jane steps a little closer and touches his arm.

“Hey, you look kind of wistful, do you smoke?”

He looks round at her and smiles. “Used to. Betty made me... stop. Then just pot. Something to do with hands.” He drums his fingers against his leg and wishes he could hold one now, not even smoke it, just hold it between his fingers as a distraction.

“When I tried smoking a cigarette I vomited,” Jane says.

He laughs. “Did that too, but... didn't stop me.”

“Oh, you're so tough, Bruce,” Jane says teasingly, grinning at him. Her nose wrinkles up as she smiles, she looks adorable, but before he can say anything (and what would he say? 'You cute, me Tarzan?'), her phone rings.

She pulls it out of her pocket and looks at it. “It's Tony,” she says, and answers it. “Hey, Tony, what's up? Oh...” She lowers the phone and looks at Bruce. “He wants to know if we're coming back in for dessert.”

The thought of going back into that restaurant makes him short of breath, so while he's still hungry, he decides against it. “No.”

Jane nods. “Yeah, that's probably a good idea.” She lifts the phone back to her mouth. “No, we're good, we're going to stay out here a little while longer... Oh? Okay. But, uh, what about paying...? Oh, well, if you're sure... Yeah, okay, see you in a minute.” She hangs up and puts her phone back in her pocket. “They're going to pay up and join us soon. Tony says it's his treat.”

Bruce grimaces. It's not like there's an alternative for him, he doesn't even carry a wallet any more; as Tony helpfully pointed out, he can't count out dollar bills any more or even sign his name on a receipt.

“I know,” Jane says, “but you know how Tony likes to show off.”

“Mm,” he murmurs.

The rest of them come out of the restaurant a few minutes later and stand around awkwardly until Betty clears her throat. Leonard stands off to the side, entertaining a fussing Max.

“It's been a long day and we've got to get up early for our flight tomorrow,” she says, “we'd better get going.

“Yeah, yeah, we're pretty tired too...” Tony says, glancing at Pepper, who's looking down at her phone. After he elbows her, she looks up and smiles, then excuses herself to make a phone call. “Sometimes I think she's giving me a taste of my own medicine,” he comments as she walks away from them with a hand over her ear.

“I'm sure she isn't punishing you for years of public embarrassment,” Betty says and smiles.

“Decades,” Tony says. There's another long pause among the four of them. “So... Jane, you want to go over here with me?”

“What?” she says, then looks at Bruce and Betty. “Oh, uh, okay.” She brushes her hand against Bruce's arm for second and smiles. “I'll be over there, apparently.”

He nods and Tony helps Jane over to where Leonard is standing. He looks at Betty.

“I'm sorry things haven't gone so well,” Betty says.

“'sokay.”

She presses her lips together and nods. “I'm really proud of you, you know,” she says, “I always have been.”

His eyes start to warm up and his fingers begin twitching. “Thanks,” he murmurs.

“I'm glad you have Jane now, she really cares about you,” Betty continues. “I think you'll be really happy together.”

He looks over at Jane. She has her back to them, talking to Tony and Leonard, leaning heavily on her cane. He should correct Betty but it feels nice that Betty thinks he 'has' Jane, that Jane would want that.

He smiles and nods. “I hope... you're happy... too,” he says.

“I am,” she says, and holds out her arms. He comes to her and she hugs him tight; he closes his arms around her shoulders, pressing his cheek against her hair. It feels so good and familiar to hold her, to be held by her, he doesn't want to let go. But he does. When she start to pull away, he lets his arms fall to the sides and blinks away his rapidly warming eyes.

“We should get going,” she says. “I'll call, okay?”

“Okay,” he says.

Jane, Tony, and Leonard rejoin them and Betty hails a cab. One pulls up immediately and they get in, Leonard with Max first, then Betty. She waves out the window and calls goodbye to them. 

Bruce digs his fingernails into his leg and takes a breath.

“You okay?” Tony asks.

He nods. “Yeah.”

Neither Jane nor Tony look like they believe him, but they let him have his delusions.

“I'll get the car,” Tony says.

“Wait, Tony,” Pepper calls. She walks back over to them, dropping her phone in her bag. “There's been a problem at the warehouse, I've got to go over there and sort things out.”

“Oh, okay, uh...” Tony scratches the back of his head and looks toward the car parked across the road. “Do you want the car?”

“I'll get a cab,” she says, and turns to Bruce and Jane, “sorry about this.”

“Fine,” Bruce says. “Why don't... both go?” The less people to talk to, the better.

“Well...” Pepper glances at Tony.

“We're your ride,” he adds.

Bruce looks at Jane. “We can... cab?”

“Yeah,” she says, her eyebrows rising. “Oh, yeah, we can get a cab home, don't worry about that.”

“Do you have enough cash?”

“Yeah, Tony, I know what I'm doing.”

Pepper taps him on the shoulder. “Stop mother-henning them,” she says. “Come on, we need to get going.

“Mother _what_?” he says as she leads him away from them with a wave.

Jane laughs a little and steps off the curb to hail a cab. One pulls up after a couple of minutes and Bruce helps her in, then gets in the other side. It's dark inside the cab, which is nice, and he leans his head back against the head rest and sighs.

“Stark Tower, please,” Jane says, then touches Bruce on the knee. “Are you okay?”

“Mm.”

“You'll see her again,” she says, “and maybe next time it'll be easier.”

“No.”

“What do you mean?”

He opens his eyes and looks at her. “Won't see her.”

“Yeah, you will,” she says, “come on. Maybe not for a while, but once...” She trails off, her mouth getting pinched and her brow wrinkling up.

“ _Baby_ ,” he spits.

“Well...” She rubs at her face and frowns. “You know... she told me while you were in the coma that... that she still loved you. More than anyone else.”

He stares at her. _More than anyone..._

He starts crying. There's no warning, no getting choked up or warming eyes, he just starts sobbing.

“Oh God!” Jane says. “I'm sorry! I didn't mean to--”

“Is everything okay back there?” the driver asks.

“Yeah, we're fine,” she says. “Bruce? Bruce, I'm sorry...”

Bruce curls forward and wraps his arms around his knees. He can't control himself, his body, which shakes and clenches and makes terrible sounds like a dying animal. It's like everything is trying to exit his body, every bad feeling he's ever had, every punch and burn and insult and disappointment, they all want their time in the sun. 

Jane tries to sooth him. She strokes his back and talks to him, “it's okay, it's okay, don't cry,” but that just makes it worse. He's beyond hysterical, something let loose inside of him that can't be comforted. It's not the same as yesterday, it's not that demon in his head, it's something else, something dark and sad.

“What's going on back there?” the driver asks.

“Just drive the cab!” Jane snaps. “Bruce, stop crying!”

He cries even harder, putting his hands over his head. Jane starts hurriedly murmuring apologies and it's almost funny; if he could get out of his head for a minute, he'd laugh. But he can't, so he only cries harder, cries until he almost pukes. His face starts to ache from the way it's contorted but he still can't stop.

He doesn't know how long they stay in the cab for, but after some time Jane struggles to pull him out of the car.

“Bruce, please, _please_ , come on, I can't drag you.” She pulls on his arm and he has just enough wherewithal to stumble out of the car. He's still crying, less of the bone rattling sobs and more a steady stream of tears and snot.

“One foot in front of the other,” Jane murmurs and leads him to the private entrance of the tower.

She gets him into the elevator and he leans against the wall, his legs starting to go shakey. He's still crying inconsolably and his face is so swollen and puffy he can barely keep his eyes open. He's so tired...

“Do you need a sedative?” Jane asks.

He shakes his head vaguely. He feels sedated already, he doesn't need any more.

“Okay,” she says, and takes his hand. “We're going to go to my apartment.”

“Mnh,” he mumbles.

She leads him to her apartment a couple of minutes later and sits him down on her couch with the promise of a glass of water. Their puzzle is laid out in front of him, he can just see that through his blurry eyes, then Jane's back with the water and tries to help him drink it. She holds it to his mouth, just like last night and just like... He doesn't know. He takes a mouthful of water and hiccups, waving away the glass. He swallows the water and hunches in on himself, folding his hands against his chest.

Jane runs her hand up and down his back. “Do you want anything else? I could call Tony.”

He shakes his head. He just feels so _sad_ , paralysing, crippling sadness. He drops his head and covers his face with his hands, crying with a renewed sense of misery.

“Oh, Bruce...” Jane murmurs. “Come here.” She puts her hand on the back of his neck and pulls him down towards her until his head is resting in her lap. Her hands are cool and slightly damp from the glass of water as she strokes her hands through his hair and down his neck. It's not how he imagined this might go, him hiccuping and whimpering like a dog, but it's still nice and it still makes his heartbeat and his breathing slow until he drifts off against her leg.

-

He's alone when he wakes. He pushes himself up and a blanket falls from his shoulders down to his lap. He picks up a corner of it and looks closely; it's a little threadbare in places and he's not sure what colour it is in the dark, but it's warm and it smells flowery. He pulls it tighter around himself.

His eyes feel hot and heavy in their sockets and his face is sore, but he feels okay, he feels calmer than he has in days.. He sits on the couch with the blanket around him for a few minutes before getting up. His feet hit the cold floor, Jane must have taken his shoes off for him and gone to bed. It's dark, so he guesses it's late. The apartment is laid out the same as his was so it's easy enough to find her bedroom door. The door is ajar and he lingers there for a minute before pushing it open.

Her bed is across from the door and he can make Jane out, one arm over her head, the other resting on her stomach. He takes a step back out the door, the floor creaking under his foot, and Jane takes a deep breath. He stills.

“Bruce?” she murmurs. She pushes herself up a little and looks towards the door.

“Sorry,” he says.

“It's okay, I'm a light sleeper,” she says softly. “Are you feeling better?”

“Mmhm.”

“That's good.” She sits up and rubs her face. “That's good...”

They stare at each other from across for a minute before Bruce shifts from foot to foot. “I... go. I'll go.” 

“Wait,” she says. “You can... stay.”

“Um.” He looks back towards the living room. “I guess...”

“I mean... in here,” she says, gesturing slightly to the empty side of her bed. _Her bed_. “I mean... if you want...”

 _Why_ , he thinks, but all he says is, “Okay.”

He comes into the room, walking around the other side of the bed. Jane tugs the blankets back for him and he slowly climbs in. 

“Sure?” he mumbles.

She nods and lies back down. “Yeah.”

He rolls over onto his side facing her and drops his head onto the pillow. Thor's head has probably been on this pillow. It's a nice pillow.

Jane pulls the blanket up to her armpits and folds her arms over the top. “Good night,” she says softly.

“Night,” he mumbles, and closes his eyes.

When he wakes up in the morning, he's lying in the same position on his side and he thanks whatever higher power that he didn't have one of his wet dreams and start humping the bed. Or worse.

Jane's still asleep, her brow slightly furrowed. If things were different, he could lean over right now and kiss her forehead, the bridge of her nose, her mouth, smooth out the pensive look on her face. But things aren't different, so he just sighs and rubs his face.

She smacks her lips and makes a little noise before opening her eyes. It's adorable.

“Hi,” he mumbles. 

She licks her lips and turns her head to him. “Morning. Did you sleep well?”

“Yeah.”

She smiles. “Good.”

“Time's it?”

She looks over at her night stand. “Eight thirty.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah.” She laces her fingers together over her chest and bites her lip. “I should get up.” She sits up and scoots around to hang her legs over the end of the bed, reaching for her cane.

“Help?” Bruce asks,

“I'm fine,” she says shortly. She hoists herself up on the cane with a huff. Bruce sits up and tries to conceal his erection. “I'm going to make coffee, you want some?”

He shakes his head. “Um. Bathroom?”

“Through there,” she says, pointing towards the door to the en-suite. Bruce nods and stays where he is. Jane stares at him for a minute before widening her eyes a little. “Oh! Okay, it's through there, I'll be in the kitchen.”

She hurries out of the room and he goes to the bathroom. She has red towels hung up on the drying rack and big economy sized bottles of shampoo and conditioner in the fancy shower. Seems like her. It feels weird jerking off surrounded by her things but he does it anyway, biting his arm to muffle any noise. They may as well keep up the pretence of normality. 

When he comes out to the kitchen, Jane is drinking coffee and looking at her phone.

“Hey,” he says and stuffs his hands in his pockets.

“Oh, hey, do you want breakfast, I can make you something,” she says hurriedly

He watches her struggle up from her chair for a moment. “No,” he says. “I'll make.”

She sits back down and looks at him. “What?”

He walks over to the counter. “I'll make... pan... cakes?”

“You don't have to do that...”

“I can,” he says. “I know how.”

“I didn't mean that you... Um, okay, sure.”

“Okay,” he agrees, and starts looking through the cupboards. He finds a mixing bowl and a whisk, bags of flour and sugar, baking powder and oil, gets milk and an egg from the fridge, and sets everything out on the counter. “This right?” he asks.

“Uh...” She leans forward in her chair and points to the jar of baking powder. “That's meringue powder.”

He picks it up and looks at it. “Oh.” He goes back to the cupboard and finds another likely candidate and holds it out to her. “Baking?”

“Yeah, that's baking powder.”

He smiles and starts mixing everything together. He heats up oil in a frying pan, pours the mixture in, heats it until it cooks, then picks up the frying pan and flips the pancake a foot in the air.

Jane claps and he grins at her. It took him months of practice to learn how to do that, back when him and Betty were first dating. He's surprised it hasn't gone the way of his writing and cutlery skills. He makes three for them each and locates some maple syrup from the cupboard, serving Jane her plate with a flourish. She takes a bite and grins.

“These are really good!” she says.

“Thanks. My special-tee,” he says.

“They sure are.” She pauses and her eyebrows twitch. “Hey, I'm sorry I yelled at you yesterday.”

He smiles. “'m sorry for... crying ev-ree-where.”

“Don't apologise, yesterday was enough to test anyone.”

'Anyone' wouldn't sob and wail to the point of almost making themselves sick, in some poor unsuspecting guy's cab. He rubs his face and smirks a little; his skin is still sore from yesterday's abuse.

“And I'm sorry for what I said, about... Betty,” she continues. “I was dumb, I wasn't thinking.”

“'sokay. It's good to be loved, even if... they don't love same way... as you. Uh... You the same, uh, same as... the, mm, same way... you do. Love them.” He screws up his face and shakes his head. That one got away from him. “Sorry.”

Jane's silent for a minute, looking at him before she nods. “I know what you mean.”

He's glad, because he's not sure that he does. He smiles and goes back to his pancakes. They eat the rest in silence, aside from when Bruce uses up the last of the maple syrup and apologises. Jane just smiles and shakes her head. When they're done, he gets up and takes their plates and cutlery.

“I can do that,” she says.

“'sfine,” he says, and carries them over to the dishwasher. He rinses them off in the sink first, then loads them up and looks at the control panel. He's pretty sure he knows which button is the 'on' button, but the rest of it is a mystery to him. He hears Jane's chair scrape back and takes a breath.

“JARVIS?” he murmurs, and a second later the dishwasher comes on. “Yay, did it.”

“Bruce?” Jane says from behind him.

“I did it,” he repeats, and turns around. Jane doesn't respond. “What?”

She purses her lips and looks at him with big eyes.

“What?”

“I...” She bites her lip, then shuffles a little closer and leans in to him. He stares at her as she puts her hand on his shoulder and brings their faces closer together. He stares at her as she presses her closed mouth against his.

They stay frozen like that for a couple of seconds before she pulls away.

“I, uh,” she stammers. “Uh...”

“Wh...” He touches his mouth and stares at her some more. He feels like he's been thrown in the deep end of the pool. He'd think it's a joke but he knows that Jane wouldn't play a mean trick on him like a high school kid. But if it isn't a joke, then what is it? Pity? He's certainly piteous enough.

“Um, I...”

“Do... are... Why?”

“I just... I, I...” She laces her fingers together and twists her hands around. She struck as dumb as he is, which is saying something these days. “I... wanted to.”

“Why?”

“Because...” She worries her lip for a moment. “I have... feelings.”

“Feelings?”

She points at him before twisting her hands back to her chest. “For you.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

Why not? _Why not_ kiss if they want to, if she wants to? Why pick and analyse everything to death? Why make himself more miserable than he needs to be?

“Okay,” he says, and lifts his hands to her face. Her eyes get big again and she puts her hand back on his shoulder. He stoops slightly to meet her and rests his hands on either side of her neck, licking his lips. 

The kiss isn't dry like the last one. He opens his mouth a little, and so does she as she tries to lift herself up a bit more, one hand gripping her cane hard. He stoops again and presses into a kiss, closing his mouth around her bottom lip, and she curls her free arm around his shoulders and holds onto him. He opens his mouth again and so does she and that's it, he's gone after that.

His fingers start to twitch so he lifts them to her face and cups her cheeks, pushing the tips of his fingers into her hair. She makes a little noise, a little high-pitched sigh, and he wants nothing more than to hoist her up into his arms like they do in movies but he settles for kissing her harder, burying his fingers deeper in her hair.

They keep going for a few minutes, pawing at each other's clothes and hair until Jane starts panting against his mouth and pulls back a little. 

“Woo, you're a good kisser,” she murmurs, out of breath.

He grins and nuzzles his nose against her forehead. “Thanks.”

“Yeah,” she says, stroking her hands up and down his neck. “Uh, Bruce, I...” She says it in that soft, concerned tone she has and a stab of ice goes through him. This is how she sounded when he tried to kiss her and she didn't want it. Maybe she doesn't want it now, maybe she just wanted to see what it would be like to kiss him. Maybe, maybe, maybe...

He pulls away from her – he isn't going to behave like he did last time, he's not going to have another tantrum over it – but she grabs his hand and reels him back in. He stills, their hands clasped together, and frowns at her.

“I just... I can't... Uh. I can't... have sex,” she murmurs, and starts to go pink. “I mean, it hurts. A lot. And... I don't want to lead you on about that...” She twists her mouth into an adorably embarrassed little smile. “So...”

He smiles. “Can we... kiss?”

She bites her bottom lip. “Yeah, we can do that. You don't mind about the rest?”

He spreads his hand out over the side of her face, running his thumb over her eyebrow. “Don't mind,” he says.

Her smile lights up her whole face. “Okay, I think we should take it slow, though.”

“Slow,” he agrees, and bends to kiss her again, very very slowly.

-

When he goes back up to the penthouse to shower and change his clothes, Tony pounces on him immediately.

“You didn't come home last night, young man!” he says.

Bruce tries to keep the silly grin off his face, but he probably doesn't manage it.

Tony narrows his eyes and turns his head to one side like a dog. “JARVIS says you were at Jane's. _All night_.” He waves a finger at him. “Was it a particular taxing jigsaw puzzle session?”

“Need shower,” Bruce says and edges around Tony.

“I bet you do,” Tony says.

Bruce laughs and keeps moving towards the bathroom.

“Are you seriously not going to tell me what happened?” Tony calls after him. Bruce waves over his head. “Bruce! _Bruce!_ ”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah... this chapter and the chapter that will come after it were meant to all be one (my plan was three Jane POV, three Bruce POV, and a final two-hander), but chapter six was shaping up to be a mammoth undertaking with a lot of different things going on in it, so I figured splitting it would make it a better read. The final chapter will almost certainly have to be split, as well.
> 
> THIS FIC IS A MONSTER.

Bruce holds out about a day before he tells Tony, in very limited detail, that him and Jane are... something. Tony grins from ear to ear and claps his hands.

“ _Hallelujah_ , finally,” he says. “So... have you done the do?”

Bruce pulls a face.

“Seriously, though, you being safe, you need some condoms?”

Bruce throws a couch cushion at him.

He spends several evenings in a row at Jane's apartment. The first day after the kiss he sits beside her on the couch and twitches like crazy, his fingers tapping out a manic rhythm. He tries not to think about that night with Betty, and tucks his hands between his thighs.

“Mm, sorry,” he mumbles.

“Nervous?” 

He nods and laughs a little. “Yeah. Very.”

“Me too,” she says.

He ducks his head and smiles. “Okay. Okay, okay,” he mumbles.

“Okay,” she echoes, and leans in to kiss him. She pulls one of his hands from between his thighs and drums her fingers against his palm, opens her mouth wider and presses her tongue against his teeth.

His twitching dies back down to normal levels after a couple of days and they spend their evenings piecing together the jigsaw and making out on the couch. He feels calmer and happier than he has in a long time and everyone comments on it, up to and including JARVIS.

At the end of the week when he comes down to knock on her door, she opens it with little red horns protruding from her hair.

“Happy Halloween!” she says.

“Oh yeah,” he says. He'd forgotten but Tony told him a couple of days ago that he and Pepper were going to a costume party. They're going as Gomez and Morticia.

He looks at the horns and frowns a little. “How are those...?”

“Oh, it's a headband,” she says, and pulls it down a little to show him the thin red band.

He begins to blush; he knows that, he's seen those things before, he knows how they work, how dumb is he? He rubs his hand over his face and smiles.

“Looks nice,” he says. “Are you... going out?”

She ushers him into the apartment and closes the door. “No, I just found it in a drawer and decided to be festive.”

“Okay. Do you want to?”

She shrugs. “I don't know, do you?”

“I dunno. We could. Mm... we could look at... cos—tumes.”

“Okay!” she says, and grins. “Yeah, that sounds like fun.” She looks down at herself – she's wearing a grey t-shirt and leggings – and hums thoughtfully. “I have a sweater with a big bat on it, I think I'll wear that.”

She sets off towards the bedroom and Bruce stays where he is by the door. 

“Come on,” she calls.

He follows her into her bedroom and sits down on her floral quilt; it reminds him of his grandma's ratty throw on her chair in the care home. He barely remembers her, his mother's mother, she died when he was six. He remembers that she was a nice woman, had a nice smile and a kind voice and boxes of assorted chocolates. She gave him soft toys and chemistry sets (she didn't understand the difference between chemistry and physics but that was okay) and kissed him on both cheeks when he left after a visit. Of course, the toys were destroyed immediately upon arriving home and when she passed, his mother cried and cried and came out of his parents' bedroom with a black eye the next morning. They didn't go to the funeral.

“Damn,” Jane mutters and points to the top of the closet, several inches above her head. “I think it's up there.”

Bruce pushes himself off the bed and comes over to the couch. “I'll get it. What's it look?”

“It's grey with a black bat on it.”

He nods and reaches up to the top shelf, his fingers brushing a pile of clothes, and sighs. Jane laughs a little and he turns to glare at her.

“Why's so high?” he asks.

“Oh, Thor put...” She clears her throat. “Thor put them up there. Since they're the clothes I don't wear much, you know...”

“Yeah,” he says, and turns back to the shelf. He pushes himself up onto his tiptoes and rifles through a few piles of clothes until he sees something grey in the corner. He tugs it out and it brings a cloud of grey fluff with it, floating around his face. “This it?”

She takes it from him and smiles. “Yeah!” She tugs it over her head and unleashes another cloud of fluff as her hair starts to get all staticky. “Do you like it?”

“It's cute,” he says. 

Jane beams at him and leans up to kiss him. He puts his hand on her back to steady her and kisses her for a moment as his heart feels funny in his chest. She pulls back and smiles again.

“I'm going to put my coat on, we should go up to the penthouse and get yours.”

“I'm not cold,” he says.

“You will be later,” she says, then adds, “Don't pout.”

He rubs his hand over his mouth. “Not pouting.”

“Sure,” she says with a wink.

“'m not!” he insists, following her out the room.

“I believe you,” she says innocently.

He scowls at the back of her head but nevertheless follows her out of the apartment and into the elevator. They travel up to the penthouse and walk in on Tony primping in front of the mirror.

“Hey, Tony,” Jane calls.

Tony turns with a flourish and spreads his arms. “Kids! What do you think of my costume?”

He's wearing a pinstripe suit and a bowtie and his facial hair seems different, but Bruce isn't sure.

“Who are you meant to be?” Jane asks.

“Gomez!” Tony says with a frown. “From the Addams Family?”

“Oh... You look the same as normal,” she replies.

“What? Don't be ridiculous! I shaved off my goatee and grew a moustache!”

Jane turns her head to one side. “I guess... You just look the same though.”

Tony puts his hands on his hips and glares. “And what are you supposed to be? Hipster vampire bat?”

She shrugs. “Don't get upset, I'm sure other people will get it.”

“Should've been Fester,” Bruce says.

“Neither of you have any vision! No vision at all!” he cries and storms away to the bar.

“They're just teasing you,” Pepper says as she comes into the room. She's adjusting a long black wig, sharp red nails peeking through the strands. She has red lipstick and pale make up on.

“Morticia!” Jane says with a smile.

“Oh, you get her, but you don't get me?” Tony mutters bitterly from behind a glass of whisky.

Pepper smiles. “As long as we stay together, I'm sure there won't be any confusion.” Tony mutters something else behind the glass but Pepper looks away with a roll of her eyes. “Are you two going out somewhere?”

“Nowhere in particular,” Jane says. “We just want to see people in their costumes.”

“Oh, you should go to the Greenwich Village parade, then. I used to go when I was in college, it was a lot of fun,” Pepper says.

Jane looks at Bruce and smiles. “What do you think?”

A parade means people. A lot of people, loud, boisterous, and likely intoxicated. But it also means Jane, grinning up at him at the thought of seeing people dressed up. “Sure,” he says. 

Jane rewards him with a kiss on the cheek and turns back to Pepper. “What time does it start?”

“Seven, I think.”

“Oh, seven!” Tony says, and rushes over to a cabinet. “That reminds me... Since we're going to be out late. _Super_ late, hopefully...” He gets a small bottle out of the cabinet and it takes Bruce a second to figure it out, but as Tony brings it over and presents it to Jane, he realises. His medication.

“One at seven with food,” he says.

“All right,” she says, and glances up at Bruce. “We'll remember.”

She means, _she'll_ remember. He won't, and even if he could, he won't be able to figure out what time it is.

“We'd better get going soon,” Pepper says.

“It's kind of early for a party, isn't it?” Jane asks.

“We're going to a charity thing first, giving out candy at a children's hospital,” Tony says.

Jane smiles. “That's nice. You know little kids won't get who you are, right?”

“Get out of my house!” Tony yells.

-

They're banished from the tower and find a table at a coffee shop. The place is pretty busy, although it's one of the less popular cafés, probably because the food is really bad. It's loud, but it's not too oppressive and they get a corner table that shields them from some of the noise. It's just after four and the festivities have already started – he watches Mario and Captain America buy their coffees and leave, and a guy in a Scream mask be told to take it off before they'll serve him.

Jane points out the crappiest costumes as people walk in and out of the café, and past the window outside. Crappy Iron Man, crappy Black Widow, crappy Hawkeye... crappy Hulk. The guy's just smeared a little green paint on and used it as an excuse to take his shirt off.

“Sexy,” Jane murmurs and grins at him.

He smiles back and picks at his stale pumpkin spice muffin. “So... you like Hallo—ween?”

“Yeah! I loved it as a kid, then we moved to England and it wasn't so much of thing back then, so I didn't do much for it. I made up for it when I came back for college.”

“What was your...” He wants to say 'favourite' but he knows that he isn't going to be able to get it out. “Best cos—tume?”

“That I wore?” She drums her fingers against her chin. “That's a big question, Bruce. I went as Einstein for my Physics society party one year. I dressed up as Spock – I've already got the Vulcan eyebrows – that was a good one. I was Princess Leia once. Last year I...” She looks at him and screws up her face. “Last year I was Lady Thor. At Tony's party...”

“Oh... yeah,” he murmurs. He does remember the party, now that she says it. He half-assed a mad scientist costume because Tony nagged him into making an appearance 'for a couple of minutes'. Jane was there with Thor and one of her friends that Bruce doesn't remember the name of, wearing a very accurate version of Thor's armour. The outfit's skirt came to the middle of her thigh and she wore tights underneath it. He stared at her legs while across the room she laughed and swung her plastic hammer around.

He left after forty minutes, but not before Tony collared him and tried to convince him to stay. Bruce made an excuse about being tired, but Tony saw right through him and looked over at Jane with a sigh.

“You've got to get over it, man,” he said

Turns out, he didn't.

He smiles a little. “I remember. You looked... beautiful.”

She ducks her head and smiles. “Thanks. So, uh... what about you? Favourite costume?”

“Oh, I never really...” He presses his lips together and thinks. He went trick or treating a few times with Jen, mostly as the indifferent older cousin, and he went to a couple of parties with Betty over the years. “Mm... I went as Frank... Frank...”

“Frankenstein's monster?” Jane suggests.

“Yeah. And Drac-u-la... 'm not very... cre-ay-tive.”

“That's okay,” she says, “it's mostly about getting candy anyway. Or candy flavoured alcohol...” She grins. “Maybe next year we can dress up and do something.”

“Yeah,” he murmurs. If she was still with Thor, they'd be at a party, probably; maybe they'd be going wherever Tony and Pepper have gone. And in a year's time, where are they going to be? Is he going to be able to speak? Write? Pay for his own food?

“Hey,” Jane says and leans in, dropping her hand to his knee under the table. “Stop making that face.”

“What face?”

“That face,” she says and pulls an exaggerated sad expression. “You can't be sad on Halloween.”

He chuckles and she squeezes his knee. “All right,” he says.

They have a lot of time to kill before the parade, so they sit and talk about Halloween parties (mostly hers), then go and browse a costume store. The place is packed out with last minute buyers, there's a DVD of a guy talking and laughing sinisterly playing on a loop, and there are spiders and skulls and witches jumping out at every turn. He sets his jaw and follows Jane through the store.

“Hey, look at that,” she says, and points to a big plastic shield hung next to an assortment of sexy Captain America costumes. She picks it up off the wall and models it for him. “What do you think?”

He smiles. “Looks good.” Behind him something lets out a loud scream and he flinches.

Jane catches her bottom lip between her teeth. “Is it a bit much in here? Do you want to go?”

He takes a breath and pastes on a bigger smile. “No, 'sfine.”

She tips her head to the side and chews on her lip for a moment before nodding. “We should get you something!”

She drags him around the different displays and he rejects hats and wigs immediately. The screaming hasn't had a break in ten solid minutes and he's starting to get a tight feeling above his eyes and in his chest.

“What about nerd glasses?” she asks, picking up a pair of round, thick lensed glasses. He's pretty sure he wore those as a child.

“All—red—dee got nerd glasses,” he says.

She looks at him and scrunches up the corner of her mouth. “Oh yeah, I guess you wouldn't be able see without prescription lenses, either. Aw, these ones have a little moustache attached!”

“No,” he says.

She sighs and continues on her search. Eventually they land on masks, and Hulk is front and centre on the wall. Jane looks at it, then looks away.

“Maybe we could get a t-shirt...” she says, moving towards the racks of clothes. Bruce stays put, looking at the green plastic mask. It's a pretty good likeness of him. It'd be kind of funny if he wore it, a private joke between him and Jane. He picks it up and scrutinises the back of it.

“Bruce?” Jane calls. He turns to her as she comes back over to him and her eyes fall on the mask. He puts it up to his face and smiles, not that she can see it. “You want to get that?” she says slowly.

He lowers the mask and looks at it for a second. “Yeah,” he says.

She looks at him for a second longer, then smiles. “Okay.”

She ends up buying a pink wig for herself because she 'always wanted pink hair and was never brave enough to do it for real' and when they get back out of the store she tucks her hair into the cap and jams her devil horns on over the wig.

“This is the only say of the year I can wear this without getting funny looks,” she says.

“Dunno,” he says, “is New York.”

She laughs and leans up to kiss him on the cheek.

Finally it's time for the parade to start and they catch a cab to Greenwich Village. She gives him his pill on the ride over and then the driver drops them off as close as he can get to the parade, which is still quite a distance. The streets are packed with people both in and out of costume and they have to take a circuitous route to get anywhere near the metal barriers. They get stuck behind someone who seems to have an abnormally large head and Jane cranes her chin to try to see over his shoulder.

“I didn't think this through very well...” she says. “We should have got here earlier.”

“There's a...” He points to a gap that's opened up. “Space.”

“Oh!” Jane says, and grabs his hand. They have to really squeeze past people to get nearer the front and Bruce comes into full body contact more than once. He does his best not to cringe and smiles at Jane when she looks back at him.

“Look at that guy!” she says, and points to guy walking down the road in stilts and a top hat. Bruce doesn't know who he's meant to be but it looks cool. Jane turns back to him again and grins.

 _Thriller_ is playing on a loudspeaker somewhere and some of the people around them are singing along. It is very loud and only getting worse. There are multiple groups of Avengers in the parade, with varying levels of success. There's one huge guy dressed as Hulk and he _really_ looks the part. He flexes his muscles and growls at the crowd, and everyone starts cheering, including Jane, who cups a hand around her mouth and hollers along with the rest of them.

The sound reverberates around his head and someone presses into him from behind, way too close, for several minutes. He can't get enough air into his lungs and his vision starts to blur, so he pulls off his glasses, stuffs them in his pocket, and puts the mask on. His lungs inflate a little as he looks ahead, now only able to see the top of Jane's head and the person in costume directly in front of them.

“Oh man, we should have got some of those!” Jane yells above the cacophony. She points to the other side of the parade, where light is dancing frenetically in the air. It takes him a long moment to realise that it's just people waving glow sticks around.

“Yeah...” Bruce murmurs, though she probably doesn't hear him and his tongue feels heavy in his mouth.

The parade goes on. And on and on. The air is hot around him, even though his breath is coming out in a white cloud in front of him, constant little puffs that dissipate quickly only to be replaced by another. People push and shove through the crowd to get closer to the front and Bruce gets jostled this way and that, stumbles forward a couple of times and bangs into the people around him. They don't even notice but he cringes back from it, bangs into someone else, cringes away from them...

He starts to feel dizzy, his vision swimming. “Jane,” he mumbles and reaches out to touch her shoulder. She isn't there. 

He pulls his mask off and looks around; she isn't there, she isn't _anywhere_. He spins around in a circle, yelling her name.

“Get out of the way,” someone says, and shoves past Bruce.

The mask slips out of his hand as his fingers start to twitch and is quickly trampled. He tries to call for her again but his voice dies in his throat and his arms tremor and shake. Faces loom all around him, distorted, hot, loud. So loud, screaming and screaming in his ears.

“Are you okay?” someone yells at him, a black and white glowing face staring down at him. He jumps away, stumbling into someone who tells him to fuck off.

“It's okay, let's just...” The guy peels back his glowing face, and he's young and blond underneath. He looks like Steve... “Come on, let's get out of the crush.”

He touches Bruce's arm and Bruce jerks it away.

“Okay, okay, let's just go over there,” the guy says, and points away from the crowd, back the way Bruce and Jane came. “Okay?” the guy repeats.

Something red and black looms in Bruce's periphery. It feels like it's coming right at him and his hands shake even more. Not-Steve beckons for him to follow, so finally he does, shuffling away from the red thing in his periphery.

The guy leads him away from the crowd and the pressure in his head eases a little, though the movement in his hands doesn't abate at all.

“My name's Jordan,” the guy says, “what's your name?” He says it in the soft sort of voice that people use on scared children. He thinks that Bruce... he thinks...

Bruce looks down at his hands; they're twitching and shaking out of his control; this guy is speaking to him like a child because he's behaving like one. He jerks his head back towards the crowd. He needs _Jane_ , where's _Jane_?

“Hey,” Jordan says, “aren't you gonna introduce yourself?”

Bruce looks back at him and swallows. “Bruce.”

“Bruce?” Jordan repeats. “It's nice to meet you, Bruce. Are you here on your own? You seem a little anxious there.”

“No,” he says. “I was... I... lost...”

“You lost track of someone?”

He nods. “I... I...” He looked down and she'd disappeared. It was hot and loud and his brain felt muddy and confused and then she was gone. And he is helpless without her. “Jane.”

“Jane's her name?”

“Yeah. She... yeah.”

“All right, well, I'm sure we can find her. Do you have a phone?”

“No.” God, he doesn't have a phone, or a wallet, or even keys. How's he going to get home?

“Okay, do you know her phone number?”

Bruce screws up his face. It starts with a... two? Or a nine? “No,” he mumbles. His breath gets short again and he squeezes his eyes shut and bangs his hands together.

“It's okay!” Jordan says. “It's fine. What does she look like?”

Bruce sets his jaw and forces his eyes open. “She... she... brown hair.” He flails his hands at his face and shakes his head. “No, pi—pink wig. Horns. Mm, bat swea—ter... Cane.”

Jordan nods slowly. “Okay, so she's wearing a pink wig, with horns, a sweater with a bat on it, and she's got a cane?”

“Yeah,” Bruce mumbles.

“Okay, I can work with that. You stay right here, okay?”

This kid can't be much over eighteen, he's wearing what Bruce realises now is one of those glowing skeleton costumes, and he's speaking to Bruce like a kindergarten teacher. And yet, Bruce does stay where he is, and Jordan takes off into the crowd. Bruce wraps his arms around himself and tries to ignore the masked group talking at the top of their lungs near him. He can hear, faintly, Jordan yelling Jane's name, but it's quickly swallowed by the cheers of the crowd.

What if he doesn't come back? What if Bruce is left here, alone, no money and no phone and no way to... to do _anything_. He can't speak; he can't even hear right. His face feels hot and his chest is tight and what if he's alone forever, what if no one ever comes back for him?

His hands shaking even harder; he closes them to fists and bangs them against his head.

“Bruce?”

He raises his head a little as Jane comes straight for him. She throws her arms around him and he clings on to her like he might die otherwise. Maybe he will.

“I'm so sorry,” she murmurs next to his ear. “I got caught up in the parade and then... you weren't there any more.”

“'sokay,” he mumbles back, as if he didn't just have to be babysat by someone half his age. As if he was able to figure out on his own how to find his girlfriend after she'd strayed probably only a few feet away from him. Yes, totally okay.

She pulls back and puts her hand on his cheek, rubbing her thumb against his stubble for a moment before looking back at Jordan. “Hey, thanks for, uh...”

He smiles and waves her off. “No problem. My brother... Anyway, you guys need any more help?”

Bruce tenses up and judging by the quick glance Jane shoots him, she feels it. 

“No, it's fine,” she says, “I think we're just going to catch a cab home.”

“Okay, well, have a nice rest of your night,” Jordan says, and pulls his mask back out of his pocket and puts it on. He waves to them, then rejoins the crowd. 

Jane looks back up at Bruce. “Do you want to go home?”

He should say no, he should say that she should have fun, that he's fine now. That he's not an overgrown baby who can't self-sooth.

But he can't.

“Yeah,” he mumbles.

“All right,” she says, and kisses his cheek. “Let's go find a cab.”

There aren't any cabs to found so close to the parade, so after a few minutes on the side of the road she calls JARVIS and he sends a driver over to pick them up. Most of her hair has slipped out the wig and when they get inside the car she pulls the wig and horns off and clasps them between her hands.

“Lost the mask,” he says.

She looks over at him. “What? Oh, the Hulk mask? That's okay, it only cost a couple of bucks.”

He nods and twists his fingers together. Jane keeps looking at him, her eyes getting wider and wider. She's probably wondering if he's going to pull out his newest party trick, unexpected and uncontrollable sobbing.

He presses his hand to his mouth and drags his knuckles across his lips. “'m okay.”

“Okay,” she says, and reaches out to grip his arm.

They travel back in silence and when they pull into the garage, the driver gets out of the car to open Jane's door. Bruce gets out of his side and the driver is reaching for the door handle but Bruce hurries over and gets there first. The driver blinks, then steps back and smiles. Bruce opens the door and helps her out, curling his arm around her back protectively. She looks over her shoulder and thanks the driver and then Bruce helps her into the elevator. 

They ride up in silence and when they get into the apartment Jane tosses the wig and hair band onto the couch and excuses herself to the bathroom. Bruce nods and sits down.

“JARVIS, what time's it?” he asks.

“It is eight oh five pm, Dr Banner,” JARVIS replies.

Bruce frowns. It felt like the parade went on forever, it felt like he was lost for hours, but they weren't even there for _one_ hour.. He couldn't even handle being outside for less than sixty minutes. He groans and covers his face with his hands.

“Bruce?” Jane says. “Are you okay?”

He takes a deep breath and drops his hands back to his lap. Jane is standing in front of him, wrapped in a robe now, her eyebrows all scrunched up.

“Yeah,” he murmurs.

The corner of her mouth scrunches up next. “All right,” she says, “are you hungry?”

He sighs and looks at his hands. “Yeah.”

“Do you want pizza from that place we like down the street?”

He runs his fingers into his hair and tightens them. “Okay.”

“Pepperoni?” she asks softly.

“Uh huh.”

“JARVIS, can you order one large pepperoni from the place down the street. Do you know the one I mean?”

“Yes, Dr Foster, I am programmed to understand the vagaries of human speech.”

She lets out a soft breath of laughter, then shifts closer to him and lays her hand on his back. “You're not okay,” she says.

He drops one hand from his hair and looks at her. He could lie but he's not a good liar any more, maybe never was, and Jane's radiating concern. “No.”

“I'm sorry I made you go,” she says, “I should have... I should have known that it would be stressful, all the people, the noise... It was selfish of me.”

“Wasn't,” he says. “I... wanted. Um. I... had fun but then I... you gone. You were gone.” He scrubs at his face and sighs. “I was scared.”

“So was I,” she says. 

They were scared for very different reasons, though.

“The guy... thought I was...” What did the guy think he was? What he really is? Brain-damaged to the point where he can't speak? Where he starts to cry when he's lost his mommy-- he means, his girlfriend?

“He was just a kid,” Jane says.

“Yeah.” He wipes his hand across his mouth and tries to smile. “Looked like Steve.”

She smiles. “Yeah, he kind of did, didn't he?”

“Yeah...” he repeats. He tries to keep smiling, think of something humorous to say about Steve's twin, but... it all dissolves in his throat. He rubs the heel of his palm against his forehead and sighs. “I thought... Ev... Ev'ry time I think I'm... but I'm not...”

“I know what you mean,” she murmurs.

“You do?”

She nods. “Yeah, I mean I know it's different but... like with my leg, some days it barely hurts at all and I think maybe things are getting better, like the doctor said it would, but then the next morning I can't even get out of bed it hurts so much.”

He takes her hand. He knew that she was in pain, but... He can walk and run just fine and here he is, constantly whining and crying about how other people try to help him in good faith. It's pathetic.

“And then I wonder if this is the best it's ever going to be. I mean, I'm only thirty two, do I have fifty years of this to look forward to?”

“'m sorry,” he mumbles.

She smiles a little wetly. “But I still get out of bed because...” She clears her throat and looks down at their hands. “Because of you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, I mean... we're... we're a team. Right?” She glances up at him quickly with an embarrassed smile.

“Right,” he echoes and hold her hand tighter. “Yeah. Huh, yeah,” he mumbles and starts smiling.

“Come here,” she says, and leans forward. She puts her other hand on the back of his neck and draws him in for a kiss.

His fingers twitch for a moment and the corners of Jane's mouth turn up against his. He lifts his hand and strokes it over the back of her head. She feels just the way he always thought she'd feel; her hair is smooth and slippery under his fingers, her mouth is soft and just slightly plump, her fingers are long and delicate, and her fingernails are short and sometimes rough enough to catch his hair as she drags them across his scalp. She's everything he thought and more, she's every idle daydream he had while watching her from across the lab, except now it doesn't come to a screeching and confused halt when Thor strolls in.

“Dr Foster, the pizza has arrived,” JARVIS says, “I have sent a staff member up with it.”

“Oh,” Jane sighs against Bruce's mouth, and pulls back a little. “I hope you're still hungry.”

“Uh... less. But. Yes.” He snorts a little at the unintentional rhyme.

Jane smiles. “Do you mind answering the door?”

“Okay.” He gets up and smooths his hands down his shirt. “Do I... money?”

“The delivery man and the staff member have already been paid in full,” JARVIS assures him.

“Okay,” he repeats, and then there's a knock at the door. Anxiety starts to pool in his gut, but God, it's nothing, it's _less than nothing_ , so he sets his jaw and walks across the room before giving Jane the chance to notice his behaviour. 

He opens the door and one of the desk staff is on the other side with the wide square box. “Here you go, Dr Banner,” she says with a smile.

He stares back her for a second, then takes the pizza. “Thanks,” he says quickly and closes the door on her. He cringes a little, then shakes his head and brings the pizza back to the couch.

-

Tony and Pepper being away means that he gets to stay in her apartment, and her bed, for the night. He brushes his teeth with a spare toothbrush of hers, then is faced with the question of what to do about sleeping clothes. Jane comes out of the bathroom in loose pyjama pants and a long sleeved shirt and shuffles around to her side of the bed to sit down.

“Uh...” he murmurs, and looks down at his shirt and jeans. This isn't going to be comfortable to sleep in...

Jane looks at him for a moment, then raises her eyebrows. “Oh right. Um... What do you normally wear to bed?”

He shrugs. “Va—ries. Sometimes sweatpants, sometimes... nothing. In between.”

She twists her mouth a little and raises her eyebrows again. “So...?”

“I could... go get,” he says, and points at the ceiling.

She nods. “Yeah. Or... you could not. Do you have boxers on?”

He looks down at himself. “Yeah...” he murmurs. Does he really want to take his shirt off in front of her and have her see... it all? He guesses that at this point she's seen every bad side of him and seeing his stomach isn't going to be grounds for immediate dumping, but God it's not... He would like her to see him better than this.

“I'm sorry,” she says softly, “I didn't mean to make you feel like you have to...”

He bites his lip, then quickly starts unbuttoning his shirt. He lets it hang open for a second as he undoes his fly and lets his pants pool to his feet, then shrugs the shirt off his shoulders, drops it to the floor, and quickly bends done to pull his socks off. Then he stands up and faces Jane. He glances at her for a second, then looks away.

She pats the bed. “Sit down,” she murmurs.

He looks at her again, then pulls back the covers and gets in. He gathers the covers up around his waist and clears his throat.

“Can I, um...” she murmurs, leaning forward with her hand raised. 

He blinks at her, not sure what she's asking, but nods anyway and she leans forward and touches his chest – or, more specifically, his chest hair – lightly.

“You have a lot of hair,” she says. “You don't, uh, shave it, do you?”

He frowns. “No... Why would I?”

“No reason...” she says. “I just remember this one episode of _Seinfeld_...”

“Do you want me to?”

“No!” she says quickly. “No, I... like it.”

“Okay...”

She laughs nervously and runs her fingers through her hair. “Let's go to sleep.”

“Okay...” he repeats, and Jane laughs again and kisses him quickly on the mouth. “Okay,” he says more firmly and smiles.

-

He continues some of his exercise routine despite the pains Jane goes to to assure him that she likes the way he looks right now. Maybe she does or maybe she's just being kind, but he doesn't like the extra weight around his stomach and his face and he can't forget how skinny he used to be and that even a year ago he was still pretty slim.

He doesn't mind the routine so much now, anyway. Running a treadmill is kind of fun; it's something he can do without coming up against any roadblocks in his brain and it's blandly repetitive to the point that he doesn't have to think about what he's doing.

Food though... He can't help but eat more again without Betty as a motivator and everyone encourages him to. There's always something in Tony's fridge that Bruce particularly likes. He shouldn't even feel like this any more, the doctor said he wouldn't, but he guesses he should know by now that his body is an ever increasing minefield.

Cold settles on top of the city by the end of the first week of November and refuses to budge. Jane starts wearing thickly knitted sweaters and cardigans and spreads a blanket out over her lap when they sit on her couch. When they go out she adds woollen coats, gloves, chunky scarves, and knitted hats. He can generally find a scowl underneath all that knit. She looks adorable but he guesses that isn't the right thing to say at her silent fury.

She has a physical therapy appointment every other week and when it comes around she goes alone and says she'll see him after, which leaves him twiddling his thumbs in Tony's living room.

“Hey,” Tony says, and plops himself down next to Bruce on the couch. “I haven't seen much of you recently. Not that I'm complaining.”

Bruce raises his eyebrows.

“Not that I'm _not_ complaining, either,” Tony adds, and screws up his face. “ _Anyway_. I'm having a Christmas party!”

“Oh,” he says. A party? He's barely recovered from the parade and lecture, how's he going to cope with a _party_? But then, it must not be for a while, it's only... early November. He's not sure of the date. “When?”

“Second week of December, probably. We'll have to see what Pep's schedule is like. It'll be before your birthday, for sure.”

Bruce grimaces.

“Which of course we're going to celebrate and if you thought otherwise then frankly you don't know whose tower you're living in.”

“Great.”

“So, is there anyone you want to invite?”

“To my birthday?”

“No, to the party.”

Bruce frowns. “Who would I in—vite? Ev'ryone I know lives... here.”

“Well, there's...” Tony raises a hand then stops and looks at Bruce. “No, I guess not.”

She'll be showing by now, Bruce thinks.

“How about Susan?”

Bruce shakes his head. “I, uh... don't think so.”

Tony sucks on his teeth for a moment, then shrugs. “All right, man, I guess it'll just be Pepper's friends, then.”

“What about yours?”

“Well, there's Rhodey, but other than that...” He shrugs. “You're not the only one who doesn't have many friends.”

He supposes Tony's right, although Bruce can't help but feel that the reason he doesn't have many friends – or at least many close friends – is in part due to Bruce's constant presence. He's heard Tony and Pepper fighting when they think he's asleep and he wonders how it's affecting them, intimacy-wise. Not that he'd ask; God, he'd rather die.

When Jane returns, with a runny nose and a scowl perhaps permanently etched onto her forehead, they go up to her apartment to eat and watch a movie. They've been moving slow, like she wants, nothing under the clothes except for her touching his chest. They just kiss and cuddle and sometimes go out for a few hours but mostly stay in. So it's going slow, but somehow it doesn't feel like it is, and maybe it's only slow because they're not having sex. In every other way, it feels like... they've been together for years.

Jane hunkers down under her blanket, presses against his side, and blows her nose incredibly loudly. She tosses the balled up tissue onto the floor.

“I'll get it later,” she says.

“Okay,” he says, and kisses the top of her head.

She falls asleep against his shoulder after a couple of hours, and only stirs again when it's late – probably past midnight at least.

“I didn't realise I was so tired...” she murmurs, and stretches her arms, banging one into the side of his head. “Sorry! Are you okay?”

“Fine,” he says, rubbing his face. “It's late, want me... to go?”

“No,” she says, still warm against his side and seemingly not that anxious to move. “No. Um, actually... do you want to move in with me?” She looks up at him with big eyes.

“Uh...” He rubs his eyes. He's pretty sleepy himself, maybe his brain is screwing around with his hearing again. “Right now?”

She laughs a little and he feels her press harder against him. “Tony probably wouldn't like you waking him up... Tomorrow?”

“Oh.” He frowns a little and her expression grows pensive. Why isn't he saying yes straight away? This is what he's wanted since he got that first feeling in the pit of his stomach looking at her. It wasn't exactly love at first sight, maybe more love at first theorem, but it was quick and he certainly daydreamed about the picture book ending. Which is this, for him.

“If I'm moving too fast, don't worry about it,” she says softly.

“Yes.”

She blinks. “Yes, it's too fast?”

“No, it's... No... Yes, moving.” He grimaces and raises a hand to his face.

“Yes to moving in?” Jane says.

“Yeah,” he murmurs.

“Are you sure?”

“Sure,” he says.

She smiles. “And if... you don't like it, it's not like you have far to go.”

“I'll like it,” he says and kisses the top of her head.

-

Moving takes about an hour, most of which is just the time it takes to pack his things into a couple of plastic boxes. Tony didn't bring all of his things over from his old suite, only a select few items. All Bruce's other things – clothes, books, laptops – are in his old suite, or at least he assumes so, he's never actually checked. He doesn't know exactly why Tony chose to bring up the copy of _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ except that it had a bookmark about halfway through it and maybe Bruce was reading it before. He doesn't remember. Maybe Tony was hopeful that he wouldn't remain illiterate forever.

“You're sure about this?” Tony asks as he folds clothes to put in boxes. He's good at it too, fast and precise. Bruce is all thumbs and gives up after a couple of minutes and tosses them into a pile on the bed. Jane has excused herself to the bathroom, which means she'll be gone for a while and Tony has plenty of time to fuss.

“Yes.”

“Because it's a big upheaval, you know...” 

Bruce stares at him. “Not my... first day at big school,” he says.

Tony laughs. “All right, well, I'm just surprised. But it's good! Great! Fabulous!”

“Over... selling,” he says.

“God, you're a brick wall, sometimes. Okay. Anyway, I'll tell Jane all about your medications and your appointments, and JARVIS can remind you guys about stuff too and I'll still see you...”

Bruce narrows his eyes.

“Oh God!” Tony cries with a fake sob. “My baby bird is leaving the nest!” He throws his arms around Bruce and clings on.

“Get off,” Bruce mumbles, going stiff.

“What's going on?” Jane asks from the door.

“Jane!” Tony cries, and throws himself at her next.

“Ugh, get off,” she says, but with a laugh in her voice that makes Bruce smile.

The moving part of moving in is easy; him and Tony just carry the boxes (Bruce's most important objects fit into three medium sized boxes, one of which is taken up entirely by his bedding) to the elevator, then drop them off in Jane's – or both of theirs, now – bedroom. That's it, it's nothing like the week long nightmare that was Bruce and Betty moving into their first shared apartment.

Tony loiters for a while, acting just as awkward as he always (rightfully) accuses Bruce of being. Eventually Tony is convinced to leave and Bruce and Jane are left alone in _their_ apartment.

“So,” Jane says.

“What do?” he asks. “Uh, what do you... want to do?”

“Um... I don't know... What do you want to do?”

He shrugs. “I dunno.”

Jane screws up the corner of her mouth. “Well... we could stand here awkwardly...”

Bruce grins. “We could do that.”

She comes closer and wraps her free arm around his waist, smiling up at him. “Maybe we can just do this for while.”

He settles his arms around her shoulders. “I like... that plan.”

Dinner is more takeout, of course – though Bruce has plans to cook something really nice for her sometime, if he can remember how – and then he takes his first shower in her bathroom. He hadn't noticed before, but there are handholds in the shower unit and beside the sink and toilet, and the shower has one of those little built-in shelves to sit on. He can't imagine she likes them any more than he would.

Now that his things are in her apartment, he can wear pyjamas to bed and not deal with the harrowing decision to go shirtless in front of her, and she's equally covered in flannel pants and a t-shirt. They throw his quilt on top of hers and add the cushions from his bed.

“You have a lot of these,” she says, tossing one in the air.

“Yeah, I... like it to be... a nest,” he says. “It's... safe.”

“That sounds nice,” she says with a smile, even though what it really sounds is stupid. Maybe it's cute as a kid to build a nest out of your bed, but as an adult it's just weird. He just smiles back, though, and gets into bed.

She lets out a long, low sigh when she slides in beside him and rolls her head back against the pillow.

“Okay?” Bruce says.

“Yeah, my back just hurts a little, it's fine.”

Bruce nods and rolls over onto his side. With his added quilt, the covers weigh down heavily on them, but that's kind of nice.

“So,” he says.

Jane laughs and takes his hand. “Let's not start that again.”

He smiles and twists his fingers into hers. “Um. Do you... want... to... talk?”

“Okay,” she says, still smiling. “What about?”

“I don't... know,” he murmurs, and presses his face into his pillow. “I'm nervous.”

“It's okay,” she says, and sighs. “So am I. Okay, well... Susan told me you were a big Van Halen fan when you were a teenager.”

“Oh, yeah...” he says. Where is this going?

“Apparently you're a pro on the air guitar.”

“Ugh,” he murmurs and presses his face into the pillow again. “Yeah.”

“I was a hairbrush in front of the mirror singer, myself,” she says and laughs.

He peeks up at her again. “What sing?”

“Oh, like... _Boyzone_... _Oasis_... _Wonderwall_ , who didn't love _Wonderwall_? ' _I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now_ ',” she sings, then giggles. “So embarrassing.”

He remembers _Oasis_ , Betty loved that _Wonderwall_ song when they were in college, but... “What's boys... that?”

“Oh, just an Irish band from the nineties. They were super popular in the UK. I had a monster crush on the lead singer, it's probably where I got the blond thing from...” She laughs again and shakes her head. “What else did you like?”

“Uh...” He frowns, trying to recall. He doesn't remember much about being a teenager, which is probably a bad thing, but then he doesn't think he could remember back before he sustained massive head trauma. Which probably makes it even more of a bad thing. Up until about twenty two, his memory is sporadic, some memories forever burning bright, good and bad, the rest just fading away; it's not as if he's an amnesiac, he knows what classes he took and when he applied for college and stuff like that, but the details are just not there any more. “I liked... the...” God, what was their name? “The... fight for the... party?”

“Fight for your right to party?” she says. “ _The Beastie Boys_?”

“Yeah, that one, I liked that.” He liked how loud and angry it was, at least.

“Did you do a lot of partying as a teenager?”

He shakes his head. “No, but I still... wanted the _right_.”

She laughs, her stomach shaking a little underneath their clasped hands. He smiles.

“I also... re—lated to not... Not... wanting to... cut... hair.”

She snorts and runs her fingers through his hair. Oh, he likes that. “That's something I can support,” she says. “When they sh... well, I don't like it when you cut your hair short.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, that haircut you got last Christmas freaked me out.”

“Sorry.”

“Just don't do it again.”

He grins. “Okay. Uh. I have. A question.”

“Shoot,” she says, then squeezes her eyes shut. “I mean, go ahead.”

“Why... if... why...” He sighs and rubs his face. This is going to be a long sentence, maybe he should just leave it.

Jane watches him patiently, not encouraging or hurrying or anything. Okay, he can do this.

“Why,” he starts again, “don't you have... a... an... Eng—glesh... ack-- accent, if you... grew there?”

She rewards him with a rub of her thumb against his palm and smiles. “I did for a while. Dad died when I was nine and Mom-- Mum decided we should go to London because she'd have, you know, support there. I started at the local state school and everyone teased me about being American, so I tried to drop the accent.” Her voice is steadily changing and sounding more English. Bruce smiles. “When I came back to the US for college, all my classmates thought it was great that I was 'British', but once I was out of the country I couldn't maintain the accent for long. I can switch between the two now, but I always end up going back to American,” she finishes, her voice changing back again.

“That's... cool,” he says.

She laughs. “I guess it is kind of cool. My party trick.”

He pushes himself up onto an elbow and leans in to kiss her. She sighs through her nose and settles her hand back in his hair. They kiss for a few minutes before Bruce lies back down and Jane yawns.

“Do you mind if I turn the light out?” she says.

“Sure,” he mumbles.

She switches off the lamp with a soft click and the room goes dark. “Good night,” she says.

He presses his face to his pillow and smiles. “Night.”

He shifts in closer to her in the night and wakes in the morning with his cheek against her collarbone and his dick throbbing against his thigh. Jane's still asleep, one arm wedged underneath her pillow, her lips slightly parted. He rubs his face and pulls his shoulders back, then settles back down again. Something catches his eye as he drops his head back to her skin – four faded red scratches just below her collarbone. They're about an inch or so long each, parallel to each other. He frowns at them for a few minutes, then lifts his hand. He blinks, not sure what he's doing, then touches her chest lightly, placing each of his fingertips at the top of each scratch. Maybe she... maybe she scratched herself in the shower?

She takes a deep breath and stretches her arms out with a sigh. He quickly withdraws his hand.

-

His routine doesn't change much at first living with Jane. He still gets up late and slopes around the apartment and doesn't go out much, except now he's not alone for most of the day and he does a lot more of the exercises that McCarthy recommended because Jane helps him with them. Tony probably would have too, but Bruce knows it's not his kind of thing and Tony's boredom is always very apparent on his face. He told Jane she didn't have to either, but she just assured him that tutoring money put her through college and she could handle it.

He works with his flashcards again, the ones for kids with letters and corresponding pictures. McCarthy says that he should try to anthropomorphise the letters – M is for mountain and M has two 'mountainous' peaks, A is an arrow's tip, etc. It's not the worst thing he's done since coming out of his coma. He tries to copy them into a notebook, with limited success and Jane generally sits with him and gives him gentle pointers. Today she's sitting on the couch beside him on her laptop, typing away while he stabs away at the paper.

“Ugh,” he groans, looking down at his masterpiece.

Jane looks over and hums. “Don't 'ugh', you're doing good, your lowercase Ps are getting way better.”

“That's D,” he says.

She looks at it for a moment longer, turning her head to the side. “Oh.”

Bruce laughs and goes back to the page. A few minutes later Jane's computer makes a dinging sound.

“Oh, Mom's skyping me,” she says. “Do you want me to go in the bedroom?”

“No, s'allright,” he says.

“Okay.” The computer dings again and she pulls a face. “Uh... could you get me my headphones? They're on the bookcase.”

He puts the notebook aside and jumps up to get them. Her headphones are red with a black cord which is hanging down from the fourth shelf of her bookcase to almost the floor.

“Hey, Mom, hang on, I'm about to put my headphones on,” Jane says behind him. He comes back with them and she smiles as she takes them. “Do you want to say hello to Mom? We're on webcam.”

“Uh... okay,” he says and takes up his seat beside her again.

“Just say, 'hi',” she says quietly, and turns the laptop towards him. Her mom is looking back at him; she has the same light brown hair as Jane, the same eyes, though they're obscured somewhat by thin-framed glasses. He doesn't know what to say...

Jane presses her fingers to his thigh. “Hi,” she murmurs.

He blinks. “Hi,” he echoes, and glances at Jane.

“Hello, Dr Banner,” she says.

“Hi,” he repeats.

Jane smiles and turns the laptop back to face her and puts her headphones on. After a minute Bruce is able to go back to his notebook and pick up his pen again.

He doesn't pay much attention to what Jane's saying, the sound of her voice is soothing and doesn't distract him from his work. Every now and then she looks over from her conversation and smiles at his work. After a while he starts to doodle pictures instead, which is slightly easier than writing, though he still can't stop from twisting his hand around as he draws rough lines on the page.

When Jane finishes up her call, he's drawn very child-like images of a dog, a sloppy rendering of Tony, and a lot of what he decides are clouds.

“Those are cute,” she says.

He suppresses a sigh and smiles. “Thanks.”

She smiles back and rests her hand on his leg. “Hey, so... Mom asked me to come back to the London for Christmas...”

“Oh,” he says, and frowns. “Are you?”

“Uh...” She rubs her face and clears her throat. “Yeah, I... think so. She doesn't get that much time off work, so...”

Bruce's stomach turns a little bit. “Okay,” he murmurs. “When?”

“Probably... Well, I'll be definitely be here on your birthday, so I guess around the twentieth till the second or third of January.”

“Okay,” he repeats.

“Is that all right?”

He looks down at his dumb drawings and purses his mouth. “Yeah.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” he says softly.

“I'm sure Tony and Pepper will have a big blow out Christmas, it'll be fun...” she says and squeezes his leg. He looks up at her and she's furrowing her eyebrows all worriedly at him.

He smiles and covers her hand with his own. “It's okay,” he says, “really.”

She looks slightly relieved, though he's not sure she entirely believes him. He doesn't entirely believe him either. “All right,” she says. “Do you want me to help you with your writing?”

-

He sits on Jane leaving for Christmas for a few days. He doesn't even really like Christmas, it's too close to his birthday for his comfort and most of his Christmas Day memories revolve around his father screaming and breaking things and occasionally having the police out to their house. So it's not like it's some big important event to him; it's not. It's just another day where he doesn't participate in the happiness that others feel, and if he spends it with Tony and Pepper he'll be a dark cloud in their living room, so he figures that he'll just hide out in Jane's suite and... watch Charlie Brown or something.

At the end of the week she decides it's time to go back to work. She's been away from the lab for months now, they both have, and Tony lights up at the thought of her rejoining their various projects.

“What about you?” he says, turning it on Bruce. “I can get the holographic system set up down there if you want?”

Bruce shrugs it off; he doesn't want to go back, what's he going to do there? Maybe he can work with holographic representations of atoms and stuff, but he can't write up his findings or explain them to others and he'd be working at a fraction of the speed of everyone else. No, it's just too embarrassing, too much humiliation. 

Instead, he sees her off on her first day back and stays in the apartment alone, eating and watching TV and occasionally taking a break to sit on the floor and play around with the jigsaw puzzle.

When she comes home he's dozed off on the couch and is roused by the closing of the door.

He wipes the drool from his face and shakes himself. “How's it?” he says around a yawn.

“Good,” she says, and he thinks she'll say something more but she doesn't, she just stops there as she toes off her shoes, leaning heavily on her cane.

“Help?” he asks, pushing himself up off the couch.

“I'm fine,” she says, shoving her shoes into the corner. “I need a shower.”

“Okay,” he says as she walks past. “You want make food?” he calls after her.

“I'm not hungry,” she calls back and closes the bedroom door behind her.

He looks at the closed door for a minute, then sits back down on the couch. There's a wet patch where his head was.

She stays true to her word and doesn't eat at all before going to bed early. She kisses him on the forehead and tells him to finish the movie he's watching. He doesn't really want to, he doesn't understand half of what's going on and he's only watching it because it's sound and it's preferable to the buzzing in his ears, but maybe she wants to be alone for a while, maybe she means 'don't come to bed', so he finishes it out and does his teeth slowly before going into the bedroom. She starts immediately, raising her head with a sharp breath.

“Sorry,” he murmurs.

“It's fine,” she says, and puts her head back down.

The same thing happens the next day and the day after that; she comes home, she's not hungry, she goes to bed and leaves Bruce watching something almost entirely incoherent to him. She leaves around nine am for the lab and he doesn't roll out of bed until eleven at the earliest. It's only been a couple of days but he already feels lonely.

He decides to make her that meal he'd been thinking about. It's Friday, he's pretty sure, and it would be a nice thing for her to come home to. Only he doesn't know what to make and there isn't much food in the kitchen, so the obvious answer is to go see Tony.

He tracks Tony down to the workshop where he's completely absorbed in working on one of his suits to the soundtrack of... something that makes Bruce's head spin.

“Tony?” Bruce calls from the door but, of course, Tony can't hear that.

He pulls his shoulders up and steps into the room; it's like walking into a wall of sound and he cringes as he makes his way over to Tony to tap him on the shoulder.

Tony jumps and turns around, staring him down from behind a visor with a blowtorch in his hand.

“JARVIS, music!” he yells and Bruce sags in relief as the music dies. Tony flips the visor up and kills the blowtorch. “Hey, the wanderer returns. What can I do you for?”

“Uh...” Bruce rubs at his ears for a moment and gives his head a shake. “I want, uh, make... food for Jane.”

“Okay...”

“I don't have... food,” he says.

“Aha!” Tony says, waving his finger. “So what kind of food do you want to make?”

“Dunno. Something easy.”

Tony nods and starts pulling off his thick gloves. “How about burgers. Bread and meat, basically.”

“Yeah, that... sounds...” He nods and smiles. “Good.”

“All right, I'm sure I can scare something up for you, let's go raid my fridge.”

Tony gives him a packet of meat, bread rolls, lettuce, various spices, and a block of cheese. He offers to help Bruce make it but Bruce waves him off and takes it all back downstairs. He asks JARVIS to tell him when to start making dinner to time it right and sits back down on the couch. When JARVIS estimates that Jane's going to be home in half an hour, Bruce starts making the burgers. He cuts the packet open and kneads the meat, seasons it, shoves it into the oven and waits for her to come up. JARVIS is right on the money and the door opens a couple of minutes after Bruce has got the patties off the grill and assembled them.

He rushes out to the living room and smiles at her. “I made dinner,” he says.

Her eyes widen a little before she smiles back. “Oh... okay,” she says.

“Burgers,” he says, and points to the kitchen.

“Oh yeah, I can smell it,” she says. “It smells good. I'm just going to go use the bathroom, okay?”

He nods and goes back into the kitchen to set the table. He grabs some glasses from the cabinet and sets them out on the counter to fill when she comes back out, then adds some more lettuce to her plate, fusses with it for a minute, and sits down at the table. The toilet flushes a few seconds later and he hears the door open. He jumps up from the table and hurries to the other side to pull out the chair for her as she enters the kitchen.

“Thanks,” she says, “oh, that looks good...”

“Drink?” he asks.

“Um, sure. Orange juice?”

“Okay,” he says and goes back to the fridge. He grabs a carton from the door and pours some into both their glasses. When he sets them both on the table and sits down, she smiles at him and picks up her glass.

“What brought this on?” 

He shrugs. “I wanted do some—thing nice,” he says. “For you.”

“Aw,” she murmurs, and takes a sip. Her eyebrows go up for a second and she clears her throat. 

“You okay?” he says.

“Yeah!” she says, and looks down at the burger. “This looks really great, Bruce!”

He frowns a little and picks up his glass. He drinks a little and starts. That is... not orange juice. “That's...”

“It's pineapple juice,” she says, “but it's okay, I like pineapple juice. I mean, I've got it in my fridge...”

Bruce grimaces. Pineapples and oranges don't look _anything_ alike, why didn't he look at the picture on the carton first?

“Anyway, this is what I want to try!” Jane says cheerfully, and takes a bite of the burger. 

Bruce sighs and follows suit. It actually tastes good; it's not burnt but it's nicely cooked, it's not stringy or tough, and it smells great. He didn't do so bad on this one.

“Oh,” Jane murmurs, putting a hand to her mouth. “Um...”

He swallows his bite and frowns. “What?”

She screws up her face and leans forward to spit it back out onto the plate. What did he do wrong now? His heart starts to pound.

“Isn't cooked?” he asks.

“No, it's cooked...” She furrows her eyebrows and purses her lips worriedly. “Uh, what kind of meat is it?”

“I dunno,” he says. “Tony gave...”

“Do you still have the packaging?” she asks.

He looks at the trash can and gets up. “Uh... yeah.”

“Can you show me it?” she asks softly.

“Okay...” he mutters, and opens the trash can. The empty packet is on top at least; he doesn't have to get trash on himself along with every other fuck up he's made today. He picks it up and shows it to her.

“Italian sausage,” she murmurs. “That's, uh. That's pork, Bruce,” she says, like he doesn't already know that. But, then, he didn't. Or, at least, he didn't think to check what he was even cooking for her.

“Are you... a-ler-gic,” he asks, still holding the packaging.

“You can put it back in the bin now,” she says. “I'm not allergic. I'm Jewish... I don't eat pork.”

Bruce looks down at the packaging and frowns.

“It's okay!” she says hurriedly. “I probably never told you, it's not like you could know. Tony obviously didn't know either.”

She probably _did_ tell him, he just forgot like he forgets everything else. He drops the packaging back into the trash can and bites his lips. He is _not_ going to cry.

“It did taste really good...” Jane says in a worried voice.

Bruce nods and smiles – or, at least, tips the corners of his mouth up.

They end up watching a movie on the couch; he eats both burgers and she has a turkey sandwich and then they go to bed. His heart is still pounding, hasn't let up all evening and he's awake long after Jane's fallen asleep, his hands tremoring and his heart banging against his ribs. When he finally gets up, his head swims and he has to bend forward and press his forehead to his knees for a couple of minutes until it passes.

Jane stirs a little but doesn't wake as he tiptoes out of the bedroom and into the living room. 

“JARVIS?” he says shakily.

“Yes, Dr Banner?”

“Where's... seh, uh, seh-uh... tive?”

“Your sedatives, sir? I'm afraid I don't know. There are no cameras with which for me to 'see' into the apartment.”

Bruce squeezes his eyes shut and tries to take a breath against his restricted chest. He can feel that pressure in his head, that... demon, the wild streak that's going to make him destroy something, shout and cry and...

“Perhaps try the bathroom cabinet, sir,” JARVIS adds.

Bruce clenches his fists and nods. He goes back into the bedroom quietly and into the adjoining bathroom, closes the door, and switches on the light. It's harsh and bright and he cringes against it as he makes his way to the cabinet over the sink.

“What... look like?” he asks.

“I believe your valium will come in a white and blue packet,” JARVIS says. “The pill most likely will be round and blue. Would you like me to rouse Dr Foster?”

“No,” Bruce murmurs and digs around in the cabinet until he finds something that looks right. He's not certain but his hands are shaking so hard that he can barely hold onto the packet. He slides out a strip and looks at it; there's one missing and Jane did him one a few weeks ago, so... He pops out another pill and washes it down with water from the tap.

“Don't tell Jane,” he mumbles to the ceiling.

“Yes, Dr Banner,” JARVIS says.

He pees and washes up and if he wasn't sure he'd taken the right pill he is by the time he comes back out to the bedroom and his limbs feel heavy and his heart barely seems to be beating at all.

“Bruce?” Jane murmurs.

“Need pee,” he mumbles and falls into bed.

He doesn't wake until four pm the next day and remains drowsy for the rest of the afternoon and evening. He just mumbles something about maybe getting a cold when Jane asks what's wrong.

-

On Saturday Tony invites them up for dinner. He's invited Jen, too, who Bruce hasn't seen in weeks, maybe months. Jane spends most of the morning and afternoon in the lab and Bruce stays in the apartment. Nothing really holds his attention, writing, flashcards, TV, the jigsaw puzzle... He ends up falling asleep on the couch until she comes back up and wakes him.

“We've got to be up there in half an hour,” she says.

He rubs his eyes and nods. “'kay.”

Jane smiles quickly then goes to the bedroom door. “I'm going to get changed,” she says, and closes the door firmly behind her. He sits up and leans his head on the side of the couch, dozing off again until Jane comes back out. The opening door rouses him and he stretches his arms over his head.

She wearing a black dress that reaches just above her knees, grey tights, and a long brown cardigan.

“You look... pretty,” he says.

She flashes a smile that doesn't meet her eyes as she murmurs, “Thanks. We should get going.”

“Should I... change?” he asks, getting up off the couch, and stretches again.

She glances at him quickly, then shakes her head. “You're fine.”

He looks down at himself. He's wearing an old pair of jeans and a plain blue t-shirt. “Sure?”

“You're fine,” she repeats, turning towards the front door.

“Okay,” Bruce murmurs. He slips on a pair of sneakers and follows Jane out the door. They walk to the elevator in silence and get in. “How's lab?”

“It's fine,” she says distantly, and hits the button for the penthouse. The elevator starts moving and Jane jerks and swears under her breath. “Damn it, I forgot your pills in my other cardigan. JARVIS, can you take us back down and hold the door?”

“Of course, Dr Foster,” JARVIS says.

The elevator descends back to their floor and Jane hurries back out with brief smile for Bruce. He stays put and starts drumming his fingers against his leg. Jane returns a few minutes later and pushes the button for the penthouse again.

Jen hasn't arrived yet, so Tony directs them to the couch and a bowl of chips.

“ _Hors d'oeuvres_ ,” he says with a wink. “So, how's the love nest down there?”

“Tony, don't be vulgar,” Pepper says from door and waves to Bruce and Jane. He smiles back.

Tony glances back at her. “If I was going to be vulgar, I'd say 'how's the sex pit?'. I'm being polite.”

Pepper shakes her head and comes to sit on one of the armchairs.

“Everything's great,” Jane says. It sounds kind of stiff to Bruce but his senses are hardly trustworthy these days. 

“And work?” Pepper asks.

“That's good too,” Jane says and smiles briefly.

“How about you, Bruce?” Tony says and sits down on the armrest of Pepper's chair. “Speech therapy still okay?”

Bruce nods. “Yeah, it's... bet—ter. My writing's... doing... it's...” He trails off and frowns. “Good,” he mumbles.

“Your writing's definitely getting better,” Jane says and presses her hand to his thigh.

He smiles back.

JARVIS announces that Jen has arrived and they all take up their places at the dining table. It has a great view of New York that Bruce gets caught up staring at as Jane sits down; he never spent much time looking out the windows when he lived here. He takes up the seat next to her and smiles.

“View's great,” he says.

“Yeah,” she says and glances over it for a second.

He gets back out of his chair when Tony shows Jen in. They hug for a minute, Jen saying how long it's been, then everyone sits down and Tony serves up curry. The chicken is cut up into a very small pieces on Bruce's plate and he frowns at it for moment. There's something about this that... He's not sure. Jane gives him his pill.

They talk about Jen's big case from a few months back, which she won. Now she's working on something new that she can't talk about but makes significant looks when Tony asks if it's _that_ guy on the front of all the papers at the moment. Bruce has no idea who they're referring to.

“By the way,” Jen says, once they've finally stopped talking about her work. “I'm having a New Year's Eve party and you're all invited!”

“Nice,” Tony says and looks at Pepper. “We can probably duck out of the soulless corporate bash before midnight, right?”

Pepper shrugs. “Sure, I hate those things anyway.”

“What about you guys?” Jen says, looking at Bruce and Jane.

“Oh, I can't,” Jane says. “I'm going to be in London for Christmas.”

Bruce looks down at his plate and frowns a little. She doesn't eat pork because she's Jewish but she's going home to celebrate Christmas? How's that right? He doesn't _want_ her to go and it's not even her holiday, why's she leaving?

“Bruce?” Jen says in a tone that suggests it's not the first time she's said it. 

“Huh?”

“Do you think you might want to come. I mean, I know you hate parties, but...”

He blinks. “Uh... okay,” he says.

“You'll come?”

“Sure,” he mumbles.

“So, Mr Sunshine here has always hated parties? Because boy howdy I've had the hardest time getting him to enjoy himself,” Tony says.

Jen laughs. “Bruce just... enjoys himself in a different way to rest of us humans.” 

Everyone laughs, except Jane, who doesn't seem to be listening, and of course Bruce, who's not sure if he should be offended or not.

“Bruce enjoyed...” Jen continues, looking at him speculatively, “telling me I'd regret trying all the fruity drinks at the senior party I snuck into as a junior. And reading books that probably weighed more than he did. And Van Halen.”

They laugh again, Bruce too this time, and Jane smiles distantly.

“Oh, talking about...” Jen clears her throat and brushes a strand of hair behind her ear. “I was thinking about inviting Susan, maybe her kids too...”

“Oh,” Bruce says.

“And my dad's coming...” Jen adds. “Is that okay?”

He glances at Jane, who smiles slightly, then nods. Former Sheriff Morris Walters is the last person he ever wants to see again; well, second to last, maybe.

“I know you two don't really get on,” Jen says. She doesn't know the half of it.

“It's fine,” he says.

“You'll still come?” she asks, eyebrows high.

He shrugs. “Sure.”

She smiles widely. “That's great, I'm really happy, Bruce,” she says, and she sounds _so_ sincere.

The dinner lasts a while longer – as always Bruce can't say for sure how long – and then they part ways. Jen hugs him and kisses him on the cheek and Pepper gives them some boxes of leftovers before he and Jane go back down to her apartment. Tony pulls him aside just as they're about to leave and says, “Everything going okay with you?” Bruce smiles and nods.

Jane starts getting ready for bed as soon as they get in the door. The bathroom door is firmly shut, as always, and then she comes back out in all her flannel and gets into bed. Bruce isn't sure what time it is but he doesn't think it's very late. There's nothing much for him to do alone, though, so he gets into bed beside her.

He falls asleep quickly but wakes again in the middle of the night. He's curled up against Jane, his head tucked against her collarbone, his fingers curled into her side.

“Bruce,” she murmurs, pushing at his shoulder. “ _Bruce_ , can you...”

He blinks heavily and licks his lips. “What?” he mumbles.

“Can you just... get off...” she says, very quietly. He doesn't catch all of what she says next, but he does hear 'clinging'.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, and rolls away from her.

Jane's quiet for a very long time before saying, “Thanks.”

She's gone to work by the time he wakes up again. 

-

On Monday he has an appointment with McCarthy. Jane takes the morning off and goes over there with him by cab. She stays in the waiting room with her phone while he goes in. 

McCarthy asks him to tell her about his week and the words feel heavy and thick in his mouth.

“Had, um... Uh... food. Jen... To—ny.” He shrugs and rubs his mouth.

“Okay...” she says and makes a note on her pad. “Are you having trouble with your speech today?”

He nods. He's been having trouble with everything this morning, getting out of bed was like pulling himself free from quicksand, and he didn't even want to eat. Jane forced him to eat some cereal which he's surprised has stayed in his roiling stomach.

“Sick,” he mumbles.

“You're sick?” she says.

He nods.

“I'm sorry to hear that,” she says, “we'll do the easy stuff today, then.”

Even the easy stuff is more than he can handle and she lets him go home early. It feels like there's a tight band wrapped around his head and all he wants to do is lie back down again, so he tells Jane to go back to work and curls up on the couch. He drifts in and out for hours, turns the TV on and mindlessly watches... something. Is it Jerry Springer? Everyone's talking very quickly and he doesn't understand a thing. 

When Jane gets home, she makes him a sandwich that he can just barely stomach and then they both go to bed, on opposite sides.

He feels even worse the next day, he's sweating and his stomach is roiling to the point that he throws up in the sink when he tries to do his teeth. Just what he needs: the flu. He crawls back into bed and JARVIS asks if he should call for someone. Bruce mumbles something into the pillow; he's not sure what but JARVIS seems to accept it as an answer and leaves him be.

He drifts in and out all day. Everything hurts; his neck, his arms, his back. Nausea still weighs heavy on his stomach, even though he's fairly certain that there's nothing in there to come back out.

By the time it starts to get dark outside, he desperately needs to pee, so despite his neck, his head, and his stomach, he pulls himself up and out of bed. And promptly falls over. He grabs hold of the night stand and grapples his way to the nearby wall. He presses his forehead against it and groans.

“Sir?” JARVIS asks.

“Fine,” he mumbles, and begins his stumbling way to the bathroom. He manages to get his dick out and take a piss, then follows it up with a quick round of vomiting.

He flushes the toilet and drags himself to the sink. Looking back at him is his reflection, his sweaty, pale face in the mirror. There's sweat literally rolling down his cheeks. He doesn't remember the flu being this bad.

“Fuck,” he mutters, and opens the bathroom cabinet. His finger stumble over the valium packet, almost dropping it in the sink. Being knocked the fuck out would be really nice right around now. He pops out a pill and tosses it in his mouth, then turns on the water and cups his hands underneath it. He manages to get some in his mouth, though most of it rolls down his chin and onto his t-shirt. He wipes his damp hand over his face, then shuts the water off and staggers back to bed.

The valium does the trick and he briefly wakes up when Jane gets into bed, but he goes back under before he can answer whatever question she's asking.

-

He's jolted awake. The jolt goes right through him but he can't move, or at least his limbs feel so heavy that it's as close to impossible as it's possible to be. Then the jolt goes through him a second time, from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. It feels like hot liquid is being poured onto his brain then being frozen there. His fingertips are tingling and his head feels like it's not attached to his body.

He feels profoundly strange.

“Jer...” he mumbles, forcing his eyes open. He's lying on his side, his cheek mashed into the mattress. “J...” He swallows and slides his hand into Jane's side and tries to nudge it. “ _Jer_ ,” he whines.

She sniffs and mumbles something.

The jolt comes again and he whimpers. He pushes his fingers into her side and she takes a deep breath.

“What?” she says sleepily.

“Muh... bray—bray—” It feels like his teeth and tongue are too big for his mouth or something. “Bray—nuh.”

“Do you have a headache?” she asks.

He whimpers again. “Nurgh... Bray—bray... Hur—t. Hot...”

There's a long pause; the jolt comes again and he squirms against it, panting heavily.

“Oh my God,” Jane says loudly and the mattress bounces under him. “Oh my God, I didn't give you your pills!”

He hears feet hit the floor, a hiss of pain, then he's alone in the room. Is she going to come back? He wants her to come back...

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Jane mutters, running back into the room. She slaps the lamp on and the whole room is bathed in light that burns and claws at his eyes. He whimpers and presses his face into the mattress and light goes out again. “I'm sorry! I'm so sorry, Bruce...” she says and the mattress bounces under him again.

“Oh God, I didn't give you your pill for two days, oh God, JARVIS, why didn't you _tell_ me?” She sounds like she's about to cry and he wants to tell her that it's okay but he can't lift his head from the mattress enough.

“I am sorry, Dr Foster, my default setting is to maintain minimum surveillance of the residents of the tower. Would you like to request a daily reminder?”

“Yes!” she shrieks, the sound of it stabbing Bruce's ears. “God, should I even give him a pill now, JARVIS, what do I...”

“I believe there is a enough time before his regular dose to give him a pill now.”

“Okay,” Jane says. “Okay. Bruce, you're going to have to sit up.”

He groans.

“I know,” she says, “I know, but I need you to sit up to drink the water.” She touches his arm and hums. “God, you're drenched...”

He groans again and she starts pushing him further onto his side and curls her hand around his other shoulder to drag him up. “Ah, fuck,” she hisses, and he thinks about her leg; she's going to hurt herself trying to pull his dead weight.

He lays one palm flat on the mattress and tries to push himself up with a Hulk-sized effort. Jane gets hold of the collar of his sweat soaked t-shirt and gives him some extra help, pushing cushions in behind him. Thank God he has so many.

“Okay,” she says, and lets go of his collar. “That's good, that's enough. Um... open your mouth.”

He opens his mouth and tries to crack an eyelid too, but that doesn't really work out. Jane places the pill on his tongue and then the rim of a cool glass is pressed to his lips and tipped up until water fills his mouth. He swallows down as much as he can, although even water offends his stomach, then Jane takes the glass away.

“Can you eat something?” 

“Uhn,” he mumbles, trying to shake his head from side to side.

“All right,” she says softly, and rubs her hand over his shoulder. “You can lie back down. You'll feel better soon.”

He goes back down like a sack of potatoes and sighs into the mattress. Jane keeps stroking his shoulder.

“I'm so sorry,” she says softly. “I'm so sorry I didn't... pay attention. God, I can't believe I didn't... notice how sick you were getting. How could I _forget_?”

He should tell her it's okay; she sounds so sad and it's not her fault but the last of his energy has been sapped right out of him. He hopes that she'll keep stroking him. Another jolt goes through him and when he whimpers Jane switches to stroking his hair. He goes back to sleep.

He drifts in and out for the rest of the day; he vaguely remembers needing to vomit and having the hard edge of a bucket pressed against his chest and later being shaken awake and given another pill, but that's about it. It's only much later that he wakes up and actually feels halfway coherent. And with coherence comes to the knowledge that he absolutely _stinks_.

“Ugh,” he groans, and pulls himself up. His vision swims for a moment, then settles back down. Jane's asleep beside him, her forehead all wrinkled up and her mouth pursed. He sighs and starts the slow process of getting out of bed.

He feels dizzy standing up, but not as badly as last time he got out of bed, and he's able to get to the bathroom without incident. He looks at himself in the mirror quickly – he doesn't quite as close to death as last time – then turns the shower on and gets in. The hot water feels good on his sticky skin now but his feet keep slipping on the bottom of the bath and his head still feels fuzzy and strange. The last thing he needs is another head injury.

He puts the plug in and sits down in the bath, running his hands under the water as the tub fills up. Once the water is high enough he dunks his head in and scrubs at the grease with his fingernails. The door creaks open and he looks around to see Jane standing in the doorway, clutching at her cane and the door handle. She looks... smaller, somehow, hunched in on herself half in darkness. She looks exhausted.

“How are you feeling?” she asks softly.

He swallows; his throat is dry. “Better,” he says.

“Okay,” she murmurs. She presses her lips together and looks at the ground. “Do you want something to eat?”

“Um...” He doesn't feel hungry so much as completely emptied out, which he supposes isn't surprising considering all the puking he did. “Sure.”

“What would you like?”

“Sand—wich?” he says.

She nods and leaves the doorway without another word, but leaves the door open. He stares at the empty doorway for a minute before going back to washing his hair. When he's done he dries off, his head spinning a little, and goes back into the bedroom to find something to wear. Jane's stripped the bed down to the mattress, taken away the pillows and everything. The curtains are still closed but there's light behind them. It's morning, at least. He finds a t-shirt and another of his many pairs of sweatpants and goes out into the living room.

“Bruce?” Jane calls from the kitchen, her voice thin.

“Yeah,” he calls back, and sits down on the couch. It's better sitting down than standing and he drops his head back and sighs.

“Here's your sandwich,” Jane says.

He takes the plate from her and puts it on his lap. “Thanks. Time's it?”

“Just after ten,” she says, and folds her hands in front of her.

“Okay,” he says, and starts eating the sandwich.

“I'm going make the bed,” Jane says. Bruce thinks he should say something, but he doesn't know what, so he lets her go and keeps eating the sandwich.

He finishes the sandwich and goes to the kitchen to get a glass of water. He drinks the entire glass in one go, then refills it and does it again. His head feels slightly less fuzzy with food and water in his stomach but his eyes are still hot and his eyelids feel heavy, so he walks back towards the bedroom.

“Dr Foster,” JARVIS says as Bruce reaches the bedroom. “Dr Abraham is requesting your presence in the laboratory. Shall I tell him that you are indisposed?”

Jane comes to the bedroom door and looks up at Bruce with big eyes. “Um...”

“You can if... need,” Bruce says.

“How important is it, JARVIS?” she asks.

“Dr Abraham considers it to be of some import, Dr Foster.”

She bites her lip.

Bruce points to the bed. “I'm... sleep.”

She nods, not meeting his eye. “Okay. I won't be long. I'll, uh, I'll be back before seven.”

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay,” she repeats and touches his arm, then smiles quickly and walks past him out of the room. 

He looks back at her for a second, then goes into the bedroom and gets into bed. The clean sheets feel good and he pulls the blanket up to his shoulders, relieved to not feel like he's boiling in his skin any more. He hears Jane putter around the apartment for a few minutes before she leaves. He closes his eyes.

-

He gets up again in the late afternoon, hunger gnawing at his stomach once again. He eats buttered bread, chips, and chocolate then sits down on the couch to watch TV. He feels fairly normal now, though his skin's sallow and he has dark smudges under his eyes. Then again, he hardly looked the picture of health before all this. He hadn't really thought about how serious the medication he's taking is, beyond the obvious issues. It's kind of frightening, now that he thinks about it.

The TV is boring, so he switches to playing around with the puzzle for a while, sorting through the pieces and not finding even one pair that fit together.

“Dr Banner,” JARVIS says, while Bruce is trying to figure which way up each piece goes.

“Yeah?”

“I believe you should pay a visit to Dr Foster in the laboratory.”

He frowns. “Why?”

“She appears distressed, sir.”

Bruce frowns harder and pulls himself up. Where are his shoes? “Why?”

“I could not say, sir.”

He ends up putting on a pair of slippers and leaves the apartment like that. He rides the elevator down the ten floors to the lab and crosses the hallway to the door. There's no one in there. He steps in and looks around; it's completely empty and he knows it can't be after seven, so where's everyone gone?

“Where's Jane?” he asks JARVIS.

“She is in the storage closet to your left, sir.”

He looks over at it; it's about twenty feet away from him, with a heavy reinforced door. The whole room was reinforced, strong enough to withstand Hulk beating down on it, if the need arose.

He goes over to it and opens it slowly. It's dark inside and as he peers in he switches the light on. Jane's sitting on a bench at the back of room, shelving above her head. She looks back at him with big, frightened eyes.

“Jane?” he says.

“Oh,” she murmurs, and looks down at her lap. “It's you.”

He frowns. “Yeah? Why... what... doing in here?”

“Nothing, just having a break,” she says, in a very flat, measured tone. She doesn't make a move to get up, though.

“Where's every—one?”

“They left,” she says to the floor.

“Okay...” It occurs to him that maybe she wants to be alone, but something deeper tells him not to leave her in here. He walks into the room, leaving the door open, and sits down beside her on the bench.

“I'm fine,” she says.

He turns his head to her. “Okay.”

She purses her lips, then looks away. “You should go back to bed, you look awful.”

“Mm,” he hums.

She sighs and falls silent for a few minutes. Bruce picks at his fingernails. 

“Do you... remember?” she says eventually.

He looks at her again, though she doesn't look back. “What?”

“Being shot.”

“No.”

She swallows. “You told me to hide in here. JARVIS tried to alert us. You heard someone outside the door. My phone didn't work, neither did yours. I started to walk towards the closet, but someone came through the window. They got the jump on us. They forced you onto your knees. They put a gun to my back.” 

She recounts it's like she's reading from the phone book. He knows the details, of course, Tony's told him more than once, but he has no recollection of any of it. The last thing he remembers is being alone with Jane around midnight, watching her type furiously at her desk. Thor had been away for weeks at that point and Bruce had seen her every single day he'd been away. They'd gone out to lunch, dinner, they'd spent hours chatting about the stupidest things; he was starting to wonder if she might feel something for him too. He was going to ask her out to breakfast at the all-night diner she liked and he was going ask her if she was happy with Thor. And then everything is fuzzy and indistinct. It's not gone, as such, he knows that things happened, it's not like he was switched off and back on again, but he just can't recall them, no matter how hard he tries. His first clear memory after the lab is destroying that table in Tony's living room, but there's still stuff that happened after that he doesn't remember. He's probably forgot more about his life than he remembers.

Jane takes a breath and points out the door. “You were right there, by your desk. They shot you right there and the blood... it was...” Her voice cracks and her hand starts to shake. “It was _everywhere_.” 

She crosses her arms tightly over her lap and leans forward. “Everywhere. It was everywhere,” she whispers.

Head wounds bleed a lot, Bruce thinks vaguely, then Jane begins to cry. It's just a little sound at first, and she puts her hands over her face. Bruce reaches out and touches her shoulder but she jerks away. She starts to cry harder, her body shaking.

“It's my fault!” she says and then says something more that's completely garbled to him. “Your pills and-- and--” She waves a hand around, tears rolling down her face.

“It's okay,” he says. “Just a... mis—take.”

“No,” she cries, “no, I got you _shot_ , it was _my fault_!” She breaks down even more, her sobs her louder and ever more painful sounding. 

“Jane,” he says and touches her shoulder again. She jerks away again, but he reaches out and grips both of her shoulders, turning her towards him. “Jane, no, that's not-- That's not,” he says forcefully.

“But they shot you! I fought and they shot you, and if I hadn't, if I'd just stayed quiet-- they were kidnapping us, why would they-- Why did they shoot you? I don't _understand_!” She's shouting but he's knows it's not at him.

He shakes his head. “Don't know. But...” Damn his brain and his mouth. He could tell her so much, he could tell her that you can't blame yourself for things others do, you can't stop people like that from doing what they're going to do, and you aren't responsible for what they did, no matter how much they tell you otherwise. “But... you weren't... they'd... do it anyway.”

“But why? They were _kidnapping_ us, why would they try to kill you?”

He lifts his shoulders. “Psy—chos,” he says. “Can't stop them, they'll always... do bad things.”

She sniffs and runs her hand across her nose. She's still crying, but less hard. “I don't know what I would have done if you'd died,” she says quietly.

He takes her hands and squeezes them. “I didn't die,” he says.

She nods slowly. “I can't believe I forgot to give you your medication. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I've been so distant... Such a bitch...”

“It's okay,” he says. “I'm okay.”

“You weren't yesterday,” she says, and rubs her face again. “You threw up _a lot_.”

He snorts. “It's okay,” he repeats. “Just like flu.”

“I guess,” she murmurs, another few tears escaping down her cheeks. 

Bruce lifts his hand and swipes his thumb over her damp cheek. “You're stea—ling my thing,” he says. When she frowns, he adds. “Crying.”

“Oh,” she says, and laughs a little, ducking her head. “Sorry.”

He smiles back and slides his hand from her face to her hair. “You don't have to hide,” he says, “don't... how you feel. Okay? We're a... we're a team.”

She takes a breath and nods. “I know, I know. I just... I see you lying there and I remember... you were so cold and there was so much blood... And then I remember them turning your life support off and you started to drool and...” She trails off, shaking her head.

He frowns. “What?”

She looks up at him, her eyebrows drawing together. “What?” she echoes.

“The... life support?” he says quietly.

Her eyes go big as she raises her eyebrows. “They... the... the doctors said you were brain dead. They said there wasn't any hope... Didn't you know?”

“Uh...” Tony told him about coding on the table, the seizures in the ICU... Did he tell him about being brain dead? Bruce thinks he'd remember something like that, but maybe... “I-I dunno.”

“Betty said that, that you wouldn't want to... be left like that,” Jane says softly. “Susan didn't want to, but...”

Betty's probably right, he wouldn't want to 'live' like that. So, she decided to let him... go, in the most fundamental way possible. He probably could have done without knowing that.

“Are you okay?” Jane asks.

He nods. “Yeah. Um. We should... go.”

“Yeah,” she says, “yeah, that would be good.”

He helps her up, curling an arm around her back and she leans into him with a sigh. He kisses the top of her head as he helps her out the door and back into the lab. She stops when they near the desk that she said he bled out near. It's funny, just about anything can make him cry like a baby, but when faced with the literal scene of the crime, he has absolutely zero emotional reaction.

Jane sighs and shakes her head. “I think I came back to work too early.”

“Mm,” Bruce murmurs. “I think you need new lab.”

-

Tony is more than happy to give Jane a new lab; in fact he heaves a sigh of relief and says that he hates going in there himself. Then he looks at Bruce and says, “Fuck, you look like shit.”

“Flu,” Bruce says and Tony makes a sympathetic sound. JARVIS didn't tell him anything, then.

Jane decides to take the week off anyway and helps Bruce practice his writing. He's started drawing more, since it's easier to get his hand to comply. Which isn't to say that he's any good at drawing, because he isn't, but at least he wasn't before, either. She spreads a blanket out over their laps and helps him draw silly little doodles of the things around the apartment, resting her hand over his to guide him.

“Hey,” she says, once they've got a series of lamps, bookcases, and chairs scrawled across the page. “I'm going to stay here for Christmas. I'm not going to go back to London.”

He rests his pen against the page and looks at her. “Really?”

“Yeah, I emailed my mom earlier, she hasn't replied yet.” She tips her head back to look at him. “I'm sorry I was going to leave you alone with Tony and your family at Jen's party.”

“It's okay,” he says. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” she says, and kisses the side of his jaw. “I'd rather be with you.”

“Oh,” he says, and smiles.

“I also don't want to fly. But mostly the you thing.”

Bruce laughs and wraps his arm around her shoulders; she rests her head against his chest and puts her arm across his stomach. “Thanks,” he murmurs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- [Jane in her pink wig](http://i.imgur.com/hdoDaLG.jpg).
> 
> \- The Halloween store Cap shield is real, and [I really own it](http://boombangbing.tumblr.com/post/99289852977/today-i-bought-a-full-size-captain-america-shield).
> 
> \- In case it's not obvious, I was a kid in England in the nineties and I was very obsessed with Boyzone. Watching one of their music videos on youtube made me very nostalgic.
> 
> \- [That one episode of _Seinfeld_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuboJiAUMd8)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content note: non-graphic discussion of underage sex (both participants), discussion of self-harm (not main characters).**

Thanksgiving comes and goes largely uncelebrated – Bruce hates the holiday and Jane is indifferent to it – and the beginning of December rolls around. Jane puts out her menorah (“I'm a bad Jew,” she mutters as she lights it a day late) and Bruce realises that his birthday is just around the corner; forty six years on Earth and what's he got to show for it?

Well, maybe he has _something_ to show for it.

Jane starts work in her private lab, and Bruce spends most days down there with her. There's a futon on the back wall and Bruce dozes off on it more than once while Jane works at her computer.

A couple of days before the party, he wakes up on it, Tony kneeling on the floor beside him, a pile of chips balanced on his forehead. He starts and they fall onto his face and the cushion around him.

“Wha...?” he mumbles as Tony throws his arms in the air in triumph. Bruce pushes himself up onto his elbows, chips and crumbs falling down his t-shirt. 

Jane laughs softly from across the room. “We were betting on many Pringles Tony could put on your forehead before you woke up,” she says.

Bruce picks up one of the chips and bites into it. Salt and vinegar; good enough. He eats the rest of it and looks at Tony. “How many?”

“Twenty five,” he says with a grin. “I bet twenty seven, Jane bet thirty three.”

“I believed in you,” Jane says.

Bruce sits up and laughs. “Sorry,” he says, and picks up another chip.

“Hey, don't eat them all!” Tony says.

Bruce shrugs. “Mine now,” he says, grabbing a handful more as Tony fights him for them.

“I'm pretty sure that if the food has been on your face for a protracted length of time, that constitutes ownership,” Jane says.

“Oh, you would say that,” Tony throws back at her. “He's your boytoy!”

Jane smiles serenely and looks back at her computer screen. “Yes, he is.”

-

Her mother decides to come out and spend Christmas in New York, in Jane's spare bedroom.

“She's going to be flying out on the 21st,” Jane tells him, reading off the computer. “She's painting herself as a martyr for managing to wrangle time off.” She looks over at him and grins. “She's going to be unbearable for the first couple of days.”

Bruce smiles quickly. “How long is she... here?”

“Till December 28th,” she says.

He nods and looks back down at his notebook.

“Is that okay?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he says. “I... have I met her?”

“Not really, no.”

“Not really?”

She looks at him and shrugs. “Well, after you got out of the hospital she might have seen you once or twice before she went back home, but...”

He doesn't remember that, so it doesn't really count. “Will she... like me?”

Jane looks at him with a slightly put upon expression. “Of course she'll like you.”

“Mm...”

“Haven't had good experiences meeting girls' mothers?”

He shrugs. “Betty's mom was already dead.”

“You didn't have any girlfriends before Betty?”

He shakes his head. 

“And none between her and me?”

He shakes his head again.

Jane raises an eyebrow. “Huh. Did you lose your virginity to her?”

“No, there was a girl in... group the-ra-py.” He pauses, less to gather his words and more to gather his memories – it's been a long time since he's thought on this. “I was... thirteen. She was fif—teen. Her name was Sam.” 

He knows they met in the group therapy Susan had made him go to for a few months; the full bottle of her prescription sleeping pills she found under his bed pushed her over the edge. He doesn't think he ever knew why Sam was there, though he could hazard a guess. He doesn't remember why they saw each other outside of therapy, or why they decided to have sex – for his part he found her kind of repellent, cruel as that seems now. She was almost as tall as most adult men, had a round face, a big belly, and sausage-like fingers. She had scars all over her arms and Bruce thought she was a freak – he might have been thinking of killing himself with sleeping pills (he doesn't really remember what he was planning on doing), but she cut herself with scissors and that was weird. 

He doesn't remember where they met up but he does remember that she drove him to her house in her dad's truck, even though she didn't have a driver's license. She looked older than fifteen though, so the cops weren't suspicious. Bruce looked younger than thirteen, which to his middle-aged mind makes the fact that they had sex even more disturbing, but he didn't think about that as a kid.

Her house smelled like piss and there were cats everywhere. She took him to her bedroom – there was no door but she said her parents wouldn't be home for hours. She undressed in front of him, and he found her even grosser; she had cuts on her thighs all the way to her knees, thick red stretch marks everywhere – on her breasts that spilled out of an ill-fitting bra, on her big stomach, on her thighs and her arms and her shoulders. He thought she was so ugly.

He doesn't remember what it was like to have sex with her, other than bad, and they didn't see each other again; he refused to go back to therapy and Susan gave up trying to make him.

“I was... really mean to her,” he says.

“You were thirteen,” Jane says. She looks a little discomforted at the thought of it.

He nods. “Yeah. What about you?”

“Oh, I was seventeen, high school boyfriend, drunk. The usual.” She smiles a little. “He broke up with me the next day.”

“Sorry,” he says.

She shrugs. “It's been a long time since I've cared about that. But anyway, you and Mom will get along fine.”

He nods and smiles. He hopes that she's right.

-

She wears leggings with reindeer on them and a knitted red dress for the party and he goes with a shirt and sweater and a pair of jeans, which are new and actually fit him. Everyone else is in evening wear.

“I'm a thirty two year old teenager,” Jane murmurs.

“You look great,” he says. Around them are people that he doesn't recognise; Tony greeted them and dumped them on the main floor and from what Jane told him, everyone around them are celebrities. Which he guesses he sort of is too, come to think of it.

“Bruce, Dr Foster!” someone calls across the room. He looks around but can't pinpoint where the voice came from. 

Jane taps his shoulder and points to the upper deck. “It's Steve,” she says, and sure enough there he is, waving at them. If Bruce isn't mistaken, Steve has that glint of desperation in his eye of a man who doesn't like parties. Bruce can sympathise.

They wave back and Jane suggests they go up and talk to him. There are two short flights of stairs up to the deck separated by a small landing and Jane seems to have some trouble on them, even with Bruce's arm around her.

“Rest?” he says, when they get to the landing.

Her face is slightly flushed but she shakes her head. “Nope, I'm fine.”

He tightens his grip on her and they make it up the rest of the stairs to the concerned gaze of Steve Rogers.

“Everything all right?” he asks.

Jane tenses a little but doesn't snap at him. “Fine,” she says with a tight smile. “It's been a while since we've seen you, how are you?”

Bruce is pretty sure that the last time they saw him was just before Bruce smashed that table; he wonders if Tony told Steve about it.

“I'm... yeah, I'm okay,” Steve says, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

“How's the search going?” she asks.

He shrugs. “Cold. I hear things, but every time we get there, he's in the wind. Seems like he might be travelling with someone. Hopefully... on the right side.”

“I'm sorry,” she says, and Bruce nods in agreement.

“It's okay. Anyway, how are you guys doing? Tony says things have been better.”

Jane glances at Bruce and smiles. “Yeah, we're good, I think?”

“Yeah,” Bruce says, “uh... I'm better at... talking now. And my... brain is uh, feels better.”

Steve smiles. “That's really great, Bruce, I'm sorry I wasn't around to help you, I should have been.”

Bruce shakes his head. “It's fine, it's... just a long pro—cess. Uh. Nothing to... do.”

Steve laughs a little. “Yeah, that's what recovery's normally like. Do you two want to go sit down? People might stop staring at us if we do.”

Bruce looks around; everyone is indeed looking their way. “They won't,” he says.

“I'm pretty sure they're only looking at you, though,” Jane says to Steve as they start walking over to a couch in the corner.

“Oh no,” he says, “I'm sure they're all admiring the beautiful lady in the red dress.”

Jane widens her eyes and purses her lips so much that Bruce and Steve both start laughing. Jane wrinkles her nose and swats at Bruce's ear.

“I'm working on my 'moves',” Steve says as they sit down. “Sam says I have no moves. He said I'm like a cross between a fourteen year old boy and an old man that yells at clouds...”

Jane grins. “Well, feel free to practice your moves on me, Captain, I don't mind at all.”

“Hey,” Bruce murmurs.

She leans back against him and takes hold of one of his hands. “I'm just kidding,” she says, and kisses his chin. When they sit back, Steve is smiling at them.

Jane clears her throat. “So, is Sam here?”

“Yeah, he's...” Steve waves his hand vaguely towards the main floor, “doing recon of the bar, I guess. Natasha said her and Clint would come, but I haven't seen them yet.”

“They'll,” Bruce starts, and Steve looks at him expectantly. “Uh. Come when... people've gone... That's... what I'd do...”

“I think you're right there,” Steve says with a smile. It kind of feels like Steve's a kindergarten teacher and Bruce is a toddler, but Jane is leaning against him and the music isn't too loud, so it doesn't seem like too much of a problem.

More people drift over to the couch as the night goes on: Sam sits down beside Steve, Rhodey and Pepper come over, Tony flits back and forth like a hummingbird between all the guests, at one point donning a headband with a sprig of mistletoe on it. Jane starts talking Sam about something and gets pretty animated about it; Bruce sits back and just lets everything wash over him. Glasses of wine gets passed around and while Jane and Sam are having a very spirited debate about _Star Wars_ (“The prequels were an abomination!” Jane cries) Rhodey nudges Bruce in the arm and gestures to the waiter offering new glasses of wine.

Bruce accepts and sips at the white wine; he's never had a particularly fine taste in alcohol but it tastes good, it's fizzy and sharp and a little bit lemony and he downs the rest of it quickly and sets it aside. After a couple of minutes his head starts to feel a little fizzy too, but in a good way, so he leans forward and rests his chin on Jane's shoulder, cutting her off mid-sentence.

“--I mean, sure, I liked Pad--” She turns her head and looks at him with raised eyebrows. He smiles and she smiles back, then looks back at Sam and starts talking again. She knows a lot about _Star Wars_.

A while later he gets up to pee and Jane, Tony, and Pepper all offer to go with him. 

“Can find bathroom,” he says with a roll of his eyes.

He's still feeling a little dizzy from the wine, so when a waiter offers him another glass on the way to the bathroom, he accepts, of course, and drinks it all before he takes a piss, and then drinks another glass on the way back. When he flops back down on the couch beside Jane, he feels good and drunk.

“You doing okay, Bruce?” Tony asks.

“Tired,” he says. 

Jane turns to him. “Maybe it's time we left,” she says quickly.

“Mm... only want,” he says. Wait. “Uh, if want... You...”

She smiles and readies her cane. “Yeah, we should go home.”

He stumbles after her, absolutely no help on the way back down the stairs because he's concentrating on not falling flat on his face. Jane glances back at him a couple of times with an unreadable expression – well, it's probably readable, just not to him – and leads him to the elevator. Once they're inside and the doors have closed, he leans against the wall with an 'oof!' and she narrows her eyes.

“Are you drunk?” she says, shuffling closer to him.

“Uh...” He closes one eye and looks at her. “Um...”

“You are!” she says, swatting his arm. “How did you manage to get drunk? How many glasses of wine did you drink?”

Bruce holds up three fingers.

“Only three?” she says, and the elevator doors open on their floor. They get out and she furrows her brow. “How did you get drunk from that?”

Bruce shrugs and stumbles closer to her. “Magic,” he says, and tries to kiss her cheek but gets more into ear territory. Jane squeaks and giggles.

“Perhaps I can answer that question,” JARVIS says. “It is suggested that one doesn't drink alcohol on Dr Banner's medication.”

Jane stills, eyebrows raising. Bruce is still interested in trying to kiss her cheek. “Oh, is that... Should we do something?” Jane asks.

“As long as Dr Banner is... reasonably alert and not operating heavy machinery, I believe there is no present concern.”

“Okay, good,” she says, and looks at Bruce. He leans in and kisses the corner of her mouth. She laughs a little and shakes her head. “You feel pretty good right now, don't you?”

“Uh huh,” he says, pressing into her side. “So do you.”

She laughs and wraps her arm around his shoulders. “I'm not encouraging this, you know.”

“Mmhm,” he mumbles, and mashes his face into her neck. She laughs again and shakes her head.

“Let's get inside, okay?”

They manage to get through the door, though Bruce really doesn't want to unstick himself from her side and once she's got the door closed he presses in a little closer, gently crowding her against the door.

She looks back at him with a small smile on her face. He leans forward, glancing at her mouth, and she puts her hand on the back of his neck, drawing him in. He hums happily and kisses her, pressing in and closing a hand around her waist. She kisses back, sinking her fingers into his hair, and he puts his knee between her legs to steady himself. The kiss is sloppy on his end, because he's feeling pretty sloppy, but it feels really good and Jane presses her tongue into his mouth and drags her teeth over his bottom lip. He runs his hand down her side and closes it around her hip. Jane slows and slides her hand from his hair to his cheek, gently pushing him back.

“I'm going to go wash up,” she says.

He smiles and gives her one more peck on the mouth. “Okay,” he says, and backs up to let her pass. She rubs his arm and heads to the bathroom. He follows her as far as the bedroom, undoes his belt, toes off his shoes, pushes back the covers, and flops down on his stomach. 

When Jane comes back out she laughs. “Are you sleeping in your clothes tonight?”

“Yep,” he mumbles.

She rubs his shoulder and the mattress dips a little. “Okay,” she says. “Good night.”

“Night night,” he murmurs.

-

All things considered, he doesn't feel too bad the next day. His head is a little woolly and he's thirstier than normal but after he's wolfed down toast and cereal, he feels okay. Jane goes for a shower and he sits down on the couch to watch... well, he tries for the news but ends up with cartoons instead. He laughs despite himself watching Jerry hit Tom with a wooden mallet.

Then there's a yelp and a thump from the bathroom.

“Jane?” he calls. He doesn't get a reply.

“Jane?” he repeats, louder, and heads to the bathroom. The door's closed, as always, and when he calls again, he hears soft whimpering from the other side. He turns the doorknob but the door won't open. He pushes at it again and realises that it's locked. “Jane, open the door!”

He hears her yelp again but the door remains locked.

“JARVIS, open!” he shouts.

“I am afraid that the lock is manual, sir, I have no control over it. Dr Foster will have to unlock it herself, or you will have to break the door down. Shall I contact Mr Stark?”

“Uh... uh...” He shakes his head and bangs his open palm against the door. “Jane! Unlock door!”

“Hang on...” he hears her say very quietly.

“Jane?” he calls again, banging on the door again. He presses his ear to the wood; he thinks he can hear something, maybe something wet slapping against something. He bangs on the door again and hears a little more movement from the other side. It feels like his heart is starting to creep up into his throat.

There's a click on the other side and when he turns the doorknob and pushes, the door finally opens.

Jane's on the floor, wet tiles all around her, and she's... she's naked. He looks at her; he knows he shouldn't because she never changes in front of him and she always closes (and locks, he guesses) the door when she has a shower – she doesn't want him to see her naked. But he looks anyway and he sees... scars, on her leg and on her... on her stomach, red and angry... And he sees her breasts...

“Give me the bath robe,” Jane says in a thin voice, and he turns on command and gets it off the hook behind the door. When he hands it to her, she's trying to pull herself up into a sitting position and she's whimpering again, tears falling from the corners of her eyes. She takes the robe and awkwardly covers herself with it as she struggles to put it on.

He crouches down beside her and rests a hand on her back to steady her as she puts her arms through the sleeves. She can't lift herself up to pull the robe around to cover her back so she just wears it twisted around, her arms in it but her back bare to the floor.

“What happened?” he asks.

“I... fell,” she says, glancing at him then away. “Getting out of the shower. My leg...”

“Walk?” 

She shakes her head. “No,” she says in a small voice.

“Okay...” He crouches down again and holds out his arms. “Carry?”

She looks at him, more tears escaping from the corners of her eyes. He reaches out to wipe them away, and she jerks her head back. He drops his hand.

“Yeah,” she says roughly, “okay.”

He nods and puts one arm under her back as she loops one arm around his neck. When he lifts her she cries out again but tells him to keep going when he stills. As soon as he's pulled her up far enough, she tugs the robe around her, bringing the two lapels to meet in the front. Then he puts his other arm under her legs and scoops her up off the floor. He wouldn't have expected it to be hard to lift her, but she's so light, he wonders if that's normal...

There are tears rolling down her face as he carries her to the bed and gently puts her down; her face is contorted with what looks like intense pain. He stays standing, resting his hands on the edge of the bed.

“Break?” he says.

She gulps air and shakes her head. “It's not broken, it's, ah, it's... spasming. Muscle spasm.”

“Spas—em?” he repeats. A muscle spasm doesn't sound like that bad of a thing.

“It won't... stop,” she says quietly. “I can't... bend my foot.”

He looks at her foot; it's bent forward, toes sticking straight up. It didn't register with him in the bathroom, but now that he looks at it, it's obvious she can't control it.

“It normally only lasts a few seconds,” she says.

“How long has...” He thinks about all those times she's stumbled or struggled – just last night she struggled with the stairs and he was too drunk to help her down. “Been happening?”

“Months,” she says, then puts her hand to her mouth and bites down.

“Jane?”

“It won't _stop_ ,” she whispers, and grabs his hand. She presses it to one of her thighs and even through the robe he can feel how it's twitching-- spasming.

“Doctor,” he says.

She sighs. “I don't know, they never, ah, they never help...”

He looks at her foot again; it's still sticking straight up, the skin pulled tight over her prominent tendons.

“I believe Dr Banner is correct, Dr Foster,” JARVIS says. “Will you permit me to arrange an emergency appointment with your specialist?”

She bites her lips and looks down at her lap. “Okay,” she murmurs.

“Do you wanna...” Bruce drums his fingers against the bed. “Um... what... do you want to do?” he asks slowly.

“I guess...” She rubs her hands over her face and shakes her head. “I guess get dressed.”

“Need help?”

“Just, uh, can you get my clothes?”

“Which ones?”

“Just anything, underwear, pants, sweater...”

“Okay,” he says. 

He collects up the different items from around the room and brings them back to the bed. “Do you need... help dressing?”

“No,” she says quickly. “No, uh, can you...?”

He nods, shuffling his feet for a moment, then leaves the room. He closes the bedroom door and hovers by it, listening out for any more yelps. There aren't any, but he does hear some swearing and hisses of pain and it's got to be ten minutes before she calls, “okay, you can come in,” to him.

He comes back in and approaches the bed again. She's sitting on the edge now, her face pale and arms trembling a little where she's holding herself up.

“I have secured an appointment with Dr Mackey in forty five minutes. Shall I request a driver?”

“Yeah,” she sighs. “Bruce, can you get my cane? It's in the bathroom.”

He hurries to get it and brings it back to her. She takes it and grips it hard as she pulls herself up, but yelps almost as soon as she gets upright. Bruce grabs hold of her and she leans against him, forehead to his chest.

“Carry?” he murmurs.

She nods into his shirt.

He carries her to the car and into the hospital at the other end. She still can't relax her foot and after a quick examination, the doctor sends her off for tests. A nurse brings a wheelchair for her and tells Bruce he has to stay in the waiting room; Jane looks distinctly unhappy, but allows Bruce to help her into the wheelchair before she's taken away.

They give her an x-ray and test her for blood clots – negative, thankfully – then leave the two of them in the waiting room to see the doctor again.

“Any better?” he asks.

“They gave me an injection,” she says. “It's stopped.”

“That's good,” he says.

She nods and looks up as a nurse comes out of one of the doors; she walks straight past them. Bruce reaches over and takes her hand.

When the doctor finally calls her in, Bruce goes with her, and Dr Mackey tells them that it's the side effect of her 'extensive muscle damage'.

“So how are you going to stop it?” she asks.

Mackey blinks. “I can prescribe you a muscle relaxant for if you get another attack,” she says.

“That's not going to fix the problem, though, is it?” Jane says, her voice hitting a sharp note.

“I'm afraid that there is no immediate fix, due to the extent of the damage,” Mackey says. “I also suggest receiving regular deep tissue massages.”

“I don't want someone touching me!” Jane snaps. “I just want you to do something about it!”

“I'm afraid that's all we can--”

Jane grabs her cane and starts pulling herself up. Bruce puts one hand on her back and helps her up, curling his fingers of his other around her waist.

“I should have just stayed lying on the bathroom floor,” she mutters. “Just mail me the prescription.”

“We prefer to--”

“ _Mail me_ the prescription,” she repeats and Bruce opens the door for her. A nurse offers her the wheelchair again and Jane growls her 'no'. Bruce does not ask if she wants to be carried back to the car.

-

She doesn't say much for the rest of the. Bruce offers to make her something to eat, but she shakes her head. She does ask him to get her crutches out of the closet. He gets them, and she looks upset when he gives them to her. He wants to ask why, but he doesn't want to make her any sadder, so he leaves it alone.

She starts getting ready for bed in the early evening, leaving her cane by the couch and using both her crutches. He comes into the bedroom and sits down on the bed to wait for her to be done in the bathroom. She comes back out in her pyjamas, holding her bad leg off the floor as she makes her way over on the crutches. She stops beside the bed and looks at him. She just stares and he doesn't know what to do; does she want him to leave? Does she want to be left alone? He thinks that he might have understood, before; might have been able to parse her facial expression with her mood.

“Uh,” he starts.

“Do you want to see me naked?” she says, finally.

He widens his eyes. “Uh...” Does he _want_ to? Of course he wants to, he's wanted to for months and months. Of course he wants to, but he doesn't want it like _this_ , he doesn't want to see her sad-eyed and flat-mouthed. He doesn't want it if she doesn't...

She takes his silence as a yes, though, and turns around, leaning against the bed to pull off her top. She isn't wearing a bra and moves onto her pants, tugging them down off her hips. When she bends forward, her spine becomes prominent against her skin and he kind of wants to touch it, but he stays frozen to the spot.

She pulls her underpants off last and leans from side to side to release them from her feet. And then she turns around.

He feels like he shouldn't look, but he does. He's struck by how tiny she is. He already knew, of course, that she was short and slim, but not like this, not how... fragile she looks. He looks at her small breasts and down to her stomach, which is criss-crossed with scars. When she breathes in, her ribs are visible for a moment, and he doesn't think it's always been that way. He'd look when she stretched her arms over her head late at night in the lab; he'd feel guilty, but he'd look anyway as her t-shirt rode up and revealed her flat stomach. He never saw her ribs.

The scars on her stomach are along her pelvis all the way to her right hip, red and violent and painful looking. Then there's her leg, a long scar down the thigh she pressed his hand to earlier, the muscle mottled and damaged. She has hair on her legs to her knees, then none down to her feet, and dark pubic hair.

She's beautiful.

She looks back at him impassively.

“What,” he says, and stops. Maybe he shouldn't ask.

“Ask your question,” she says flatly.

“What, uh...” He points to the scars on her stomach, then curls his finger back into his palm.

“That's where they tore out my uterus,” she says. “No time for finesse.”

He blinks. “You... uh, you had... hys...”

“Hysterectomy, yeah,” she finishes. “Didn't you know that?”

“No...” he murmurs.

She quirks her mouth into an unhappy smile. “The bullet destroyed everything on my right side. Bone, muscle, organs...” She shrugs. “No babies for me.”

He sits up on his knees and shuffles over to her.

“I just thought you should see it all since...”

“Jane,” he says, and puts his hands on her shoulders. 

She purses her mouth, her eyes getting red. “I don't want to end up in a wheelchair,” she whispers.

He wraps his arms around her, and although she can't hug back with her crutches, she lays her head on his shoulder. He splays his hand out over her back and rubs; her skin is cool to the point of being cold and his hand is warm and almost sweaty.

“Can you help me get dressed again?” she says softly.

“Sure,” he says, and gets off the bed. She shuffles around to sit on the bed and Bruce retrieves her clothes. She takes the top from him and pulls it back on while Bruce hooks her underpants around her feet and pulls them up for her to reach. They do the same thing for her pyjama pants and then Jane pulls herself a little bit further to the middle of the bed and Bruce follows suit.

Her cheeks have started to go red and when he looks at her, she glances away for a moment before looking back.

“That was embarrassing,” she murmurs. “Sorry.”

He smiles.

“I guess you've figured out by now that I get kind of distant when I'm upset,” she adds.

“Yeah,” he says. “Don't do that.”

She laughs and shakes her head. “I'll try.”

“You've... had a bad couple weeks,” he says.

She laughs again, though there's a sobbing edge to it. “Yeah. Yeah, I really have. Sorry.”

He scoots closer to her and puts his arm around her. “You'll be okay.”

She sighs and looks at her lap. “I hope so. You still going to love me if you have to push me everywhere in a wheelchair?” She stills and looks away with an awkward laugh.

He blinks. “Yeah,” he says.

She looks back, head tilted down, looking at him through her eyelashes. “Okay,” she says softly.

-

The next few days are rough. She sticks with her crutches, she has trouble taking showers, she cries when she thinks he can't hear. The cramps come back and Bruce helps try to massage them out, kneading his knuckles into her thigh. She says that it helps.

And then it's his birthday. He doesn't realise until he wakes up to Jane holding a cupcake with a candle in it under his nose. When he stumbles out of the bedroom after her he finds that the whole living room has been decorated with balloons and streamers. He rubs at his eyes and surveys all the shiny colours.

“I got up early,” Jane says with a smile.

“It's great,” he says. “Uh. What's Tony... doing to me? With birthday?”

“You make it sound like he's going to torture you.”

Bruce raises his eyebrows. Jane laughs and rolls her eyes.

“He invited Jen and there's going to be a big cake.”

“What else?”

“That's it.”

“Hm,” he murmurs. There must be a catch. There is always a catch when it comes to Tony. “Okay... 'm gonna have shower.”

“Not before you open your present!” she says, grabbing his wrist before he can walk away.

“Oh,” he says, and looks over to where she gesturing to the couch. There's a rectangular package wrapped in red paper and a bow. He glances back at Jane, who smiles a little worriedly. “Yeah. Okay, yeah.”

He helps her over to the couch and sits down. He picks up the present and tests the weight, then runs his fingers along the edges. It's a book. She got him a book.

“Open it,” she murmurs, and nudges his arm.

He nods and flips it over, runs his fingernail under the triangular fold and pries the tape up.

“Just tear it! Don't be so careful!” Jane says.

“Mm,” he murmurs, and up ends the book so that it slides out of the wrapping. Jane tuts.

The book doesn't have a title, he thinks, and it's blue with fancy embossed gold decoration that feels nice under his fingers. He opens it and flips through the pages – it's blank. It's a...

“It's a notebook!” she says. “I thought that, you know, it might be nice if you had... something nice to practice in... Was it a stupid idea? It was stupid...”

He shakes his head. “No, I like it. Thank you.” He puts it down on his lap and leans over to hug her. “Thank you.”

“I was going to get you a card, but then I thought...” She clears her throat. “Anyway...”

He kisses her quickly and sits back. “Thank you,” he repeats. “'m gonna have shower?”

“Okay,” she says, and pats his leg. “I'll tell Tony to cancel the stripper and fireworks.”

Bruce blinks, opening his mouth slightly. 

“That's a joke,” she says.

“Oh,” he says, and smiles a little. “Okay.”

-

It's just a small gathering, thankfully Tony doesn't try to push that particular boundary. He does, however, pounce on Bruce as soon as he's through the door and put a party hat on him.

“What...?” Bruce mutters, the elastic cutting in under his chin. He tugs it back off.

“Oh, come _on_ ,” Tony says.

“No,” Bruce says, and hands it back to him.

Tony grumbles dramatically and walks away.

When Jen sees Jane on her crutches, she frowns a little and Bruce notices her turning and saying something to Tony.

Bruce's cake has forty six candles on it and looks like it might cause a fire. He blows them all out but one, which catches light again. He frowns and blows it out again – the flame pops back up. He narrows his eyes at it as Tony starts to cackle in the background. Bruce tries to blow it out again-- what the fuck?

“Did you put one of those candles that won't go out on the cake?” Jane asks Tony.

“Maaaybe,” Tony says.

Bruce feels his face begin to warm up with embarrassment and takes a step back from the table.

Tony clears his throat. “Well, let's just cut into this bad boy and get to the good stuff – presents!”

The cake is good – of course, there's no other option with Tony – and then he gets presents. Tony insists on going first, thrusting a small box at Bruce. Inside there's some kind of electronic device; it looks a little an iPod with the button in the middle but it's made entirely out of metal instead of any plastic.

“It's an MP3 player,” Tony says, “but made by yours truly.”

“Thanks,” Bruce says. He doesn't really listen to music though...

“Okay, yeah, there's more to it than that,” Tony continues. “For one thing, you could hammer nails in with that thing, plus it's waterproof. But what I did was let myself into your old apartment and snooped through all your books--”

“You really know how to sell a gift,” Pepper says.

“ _And_ then I found audio versions of all of them and loaded them onto it.”

Bruce looks at it again. “Wow.”

“Oh, and it's voice-activated.”

It's idiot-proof, basically. Bruce-proof.

“Thanks,” he says again.

“Do you like it?” Tony pushes, a worried lilt to his voice.

He sits up and smiles. “Of course I do. Thank you, Tony.”

Jen gives him an ugly sweater with a reindeer on it.

“I knitted it myself,” she says.

“You can knit?”

She laughs. “You tell me. I figured it doesn't make sense when you give a Christmas sweater on Christmas Day. You need it at least a few days before to drag out the torture.”

“Oh,” he says, and laughs.

“I was inspired after finding this photo.” She holds a sepia tinted photo out to him but before he can get a good look at it, Tony snatches it away with a quiet 'oh my God'.

“Teenage Bruce!” he cries. “Look at that, _adorable_.”

“Let me see,” Jane says, holding out her hand. Tony holds it out of her reach for a moment, until Pepper glares at him. “Aw,” Jane murmurs when she gets hold of it. “You were adorable.”

Bruce looks over and she hands it to him. He's smiling at the camera like he's in pain, thick braces on his teeth, acne marring his cheeks and chin. He's wearing an ugly knitted sweater with Santa Claus on the front, standing in front of a threadbare Christmas tree. He guesses he was about fifteen in it.

“Remember when Grandma knitted all us kids those terrible sweaters?” Jen asks. “You looked like you were dying the entire day.”

“You had a grandma who knitted you sweaters?” Tony says. “My God, that's so Midwest of you.”

“Yeah, I guess...” Bruce murmurs, not sure who he's answering. He doesn't remember this Christmas at all. He doesn't remember the sweater and he barely remembers his grandma. Brian's mother; not much to remember. He squeezes Jen's sweater between his hands and starts putting it on. It's too big for him, the sleeves come out way past his hands and the bottom stretches down to the middle of his thigh.

“Damn,” Jen mutters when he stands up. “Sorry about the size.”

He shrugs. “I like it,” he says. It's nice to wear something that's too big, rather than too small. “Thank you.” He steps forward and hugs her.

“Can I keep this picture?” Jane asks.

Jen pulls back from him and smiles. “Yeah, I've got more too. And I bet Susan has a bunch.”

“No,” Bruce says.

Tony wraps an arm around his neck and tugs. “Brother, you've already lost this one.”

-

The rest of the day is food and talking; he participates a lot in the food, less in the talking, and feels guilty at how relieved he is when things wind down and he and Jane can go back to their apartment. Before they do, though, it occurs to him that he hasn't got Jane a Christmas present, or Jen either, for that matter, and he takes Tony aside.

“I need get Jane a pres—ent,” he says.

“And you want my advice? I'm honoured!”

“And money,” he adds.

Tony rolls his eyes. “And money. Okay, well, we can go tomorrow, just come up when you want to go, I'll be around.”

“Thanks,” he says, and tries not to blush with embarrassment again. He got his first job at twelve, and now...

“It was nice thought of Tony's,” Jane says when they get back home. “You know, the audio books...”

Bruce pulls the player out of his pocket and turns it over in his hands. It's nice to touch, cool and smooth. “Yeah,” he says, and puts it down on the table.

“Do you think you'll use it?”

He shrugs. “Dunno.”

“All right, well...” She smiles quickly and gestures towards the bedroom. “I'm going to, uh... wash up...”

He nods and follows her into the bedroom. She gets something out of the chest of drawers while he flops down on the bed. 

“Okay,” she murmurs, and a minutes later he hears the bathroom door close over. 

He starts to drift off, thinking about nothing. He finds it easy to think about nothing these days; he never used to. He vaguely hears her come back into the bedroom and mumble something to herself.

“Are you awake?” Jane says. 

“Uh huh,” he murmurs.

“Okay, I, uh, have one more present for you.”

Bruce groans a little into his pillow for a second; it's not that he's ungrateful, he just wants everyone to forget about his birthday. Is it midnight yet? He starts to push himself up and opens his eyes.

Jane is... wearing lingerie, black lacy underpants and a bra with a thick band that covers some of her ribs. Her hair is all messy and... what's the word? Tousled? Her lips are shiny with pink lip gloss.

He blinks. He is definitely awake now.

“Sexy underwear,” Jane says with a strained laugh and a flourish of her hands.

“Uh...” he murmurs, feeling his dick begin to stir.

“I thought that we could, um. Have sex,” she says. “Happy birthday?”

He blinks again. She's standing in front of him, looking like that, and he's still wearing this stupid sweater. The corners of Jane's mouth turn down a little and she looks away.

He sits up on his knees, his erection rubbing against the seam of his pants, and yanks the sweater off. When he tosses it to the ground, Jane looks back and smiles a little.

“So you want to?” she says.

He laughs and scoots closer to the edge of the bed. Jane's gaze falls on his crotch and she smiles wider.

“Are you... want to?” he says. What is he trying to say? “Uh, doesn't... hurt?”

“Oh,” she says. “Well, I think... as long we go slow, it should, it should be okay...”

“Sure?” he says.

She nods and puts her crutches aside. “Yeah,” she says, and sits down beside him. “So...”

His heart is starting to pound pretty hard in his chest. “Uh... kiss?”

“Oh yeah,” she says, and leans in. He loves kissing her every time, but with her bare skin, God... She rests her hands on his shoulders, running her fingers through the hair growing down the back of his neck, while he cups the back of her head, dropping his other hand to her bare side. 

She slides her hands down to the front of his shirt and starts unbuttoning it, brushing her cold fingertips against his chest with every new button. He pants against her mouth and sucks at her bottom lip and she reaches the bottom of his shirt, pushing it open, her nails tickling against his stomach, making it twitch involuntarily. He wraps an arm around her middle and tries to manoeuvre her under him.

“Ah,” she mutters.

He pulls back and licks his lips. Jesus, he's getting a bit ahead of himself. “Okay?”

She smiles quickly. “Yeah, just... careful?”

“Sorry,” he says, and presses a kiss to her cheek. She curls her arms around his neck and he eases her down onto the mattress, pressing one hand to her hip to keep her from lying down at an angle. When she lies back, some of her hair fanning out across the pillow, he pulls back again. God. _God_.

“Okay?”

“Yeah,” she breathes. Her cheeks are starting to go pink.

He feels pretty out of breath too. “Okay,” he repeats and leans back in.

They kiss for a bit longer, Jane running her hands up and down his sides for a little while until she starts working his belt off. He grunts and presses into her a little more, mouthing at her jaw. She unzips his fly and pushes her hand into his boxers. He squeaks and slips forward, mashing his face into the pillow.

“Are you okay?” she says.

“Uh huh,” he mumbles and starts laughing. Her hand is still in his boxers and she curls it around his thigh.

“Did I take you by surprise?”

“Yeah,” he says into the pillow, still laughing.

Jane laughs as well and rubs her other hand up his back. “Take off your pants,” she whispers.

He scrambles off her with a quickness that makes her laugh again. He looks up at her and grins, then pushes his pants down to his knees and tugs them off. He adds his shirt too, and drops them all on the floor by the bed. He hooks a finger into the waistband of his boxers.

“Boxers?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she says, “I want to... see it.”

He nods and pulls his boxers down, leaving them around his knees to look back up at her. Her eyes have gone wide, her mouth small and pensive. Betty told him once that he had a pretty big dick...

“Still want to?” he says.

She bites her lips for a second, then nods. “Yeah... yeah, of course.”

He's not sure if he believes her. “Okay,” he says, and stretches back up to her.

They kiss again, their thighs pressed together, his stomach brushing hers when he gets really close. Jane asks him to take her bra off because it's itchy and he doesn't need to be told twice. He scrabbles with the clasp for a little while but manages to get it and pull it off her. He kisses her throat, then down her breastbone and she sighs. He moves down further, pressing his mouth to her stomach. She takes a deep breath, her stomach hollowing out beneath him, and he looks down further to see the criss-cross scars.

“Stop?” he says.

“No,” she says, her voice thin. “No, you can... you can keep going.”

He pauses for another second, then lowers his head again and presses his mouth to the uneven skin. She takes a soft breath and he runs his tongue along the scar. “Good?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she sighs, and runs her fingers through his hair. “Yeah, keep going.”

He smiles and trails his mouth across her stomach to one of her sharp hipbones; she sighs again and massages her fingers through his hair. Her fingers fall from his hair as he moves down to her leg. She flexes her foot and when he reaches the back of her knee she jerks a little and laughs. He smiles in response and comes back up the other side, until he's pressing his mouth to the dip of her waist. Jane takes one of his hands and presses it to her breast. He glances up at her and squeezes gently, which elicits a soft 'yeah'. He trails up to her other breast and sucks on the skin gently until she moans quietly. She winds her fingers into his hair again, pulling tight, and he groans back. His dick throbs, nearly forgotten, and he angles it to press against her thigh for a moment; he groans louder, jerking his hips up.

Jane goes still, her fingers loosening. “Should I take my pants off?” she says quietly.

He looks up at her; her face has gone tight, her mouth a flat line. She was so happy a minute ago, now he can feel her body begin to tense under him.

“No,” he says.

“No?” she echoes. “You... don't want to?”

He pulls himself up so they're face to face again. She looks... upset. “I want, but... you'll hurt?”

“Oh,” she says, “I don't mind about that.”

She didn't say it won't hurt. “I do,” he says.

“Oh...” she murmurs. “Well, I really do want... I really am... horny.”

He smiles a little and kisses her again; she sighs, and as she does he reaches down between her legs and presses his hand there.

“Oh,” she says again, her mouth going round. He rubs harder, using the heel of his hand, and she squeaks and takes a shaky breath. There's her clit. “That'll work,” she breathes.

He grins and leans in, pressing his mouth to her neck. She moans louder and he goes to town, kissing her neck, dragging his stubble against her skin; he lifts his free hand and presses it to her breast again.

She makes lots of soft little sounds and every time his dick brushes against her he joins in, though less quietly. When she comes, it's with a soft 'oh oh oh' and a whine. He pulls back a little, presses a kiss to her collarbone, and looks up at her. Her lips are parted, her eyes closed, and she's warm, for once, a pink blush colouring her face. He leans in and kisses her, lets his hand fall to her thigh.

She opens her eyes and looks up at him with an expression that... he doesn't know, like it's the first time she's ever seen him. She sucks her lips into her mouth for a moment, then smiles. “It's supposed to be _your_ birthday.”

“It is,” he says, and kisses her again.

She smiles. “Do you want to... uh... jerk off on my stomach?”

He blinks.

“Or...” She looks down between their bodies, at his dick which is achingly hard. She wraps her hand around it and he almost loses his balance and falls on top of her. “I could do it.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, yeah.”

She laughs at his enthusiasm and he curls over her, pressing his face back to her neck. Her grip is loose, then hard, her fingers unsure, but he doesn't care, it's the best thing he's ever felt. He rolls his hips, fucking into her hand, driving down into her, and tries his best not to let go so much as to hurt her, but it's a near thing. It builds and builds and builds in the pit of his stomach, like every day in the shower, but so much better and he thinks distantly that he might be making noises as if he's in pain, but it's so, so the opposite and when the thought that it's Jane getting him off drifts across his empty mind, he comes instantly. He presses his face into her neck so hard he can barely draw breath, digs his fingers into the sheets, and moans until her fingers let up and slip away.

She strokes his back and he feels her press her cheek against his hair. 

“Uh,” he grunts and she laughs softly. It's a good thing he was propped up on his knees already, because otherwise...

He pushes himself up onto his elbows and rolls off to the side. Jane hums softly and he looks over at her. There's come all over her stomach, her eyes are closed-- he groans again and rubs at his eyes.

“I didn't know that you were so...” She laughs a little. “Good at that.”

“Sex ma—chine,” he mumbles.

Jane laughs again and reaches out to run her fingers through his hair. She scratches at his scalp and he closes his eyes.

“Sorry I was kind of... inept,” Jane says. “I haven't jerked a guy off since undergrad.”

Bruce shakes his head slightly from side to side. “Was great.”

“Good,” she says, “that's good. I'm used to more like... the suck and fuck.”

He opens his eyes and frowns at her.

“What?” she says, laughing a little. “That's what my boyfriends liked.”

“Mm,” he says, and closes his eyes again.

There's a long pause and then Jane takes a breath and says, “Will you help me clean up before you go to sleep?”

-

Jane has a couple of days of work left to do at the lab, so she leaves the apartment the next morning and Bruce manages to get himself up to Tony's by the early afternoon. Tony ribs him endlessly about his advanced age as they walk around all the best department stores New York has to offer, but nothing is bringing Bruce's mood down today.

He buys an ugly sweater for Jen to get back at her and eventually settles on an antique telescope for Jane. Afterwards, they get something to eat and Tony eyes him the whole time. When they get back, Steve is there to talk with Tony, so Bruce sits down with the new notebook Jane gave him, and starts practising his writing.

They seem to talk for hours, at times raising their voices enough that Bruce can hear them two rooms away. He thinks about going and seeing what's happening – he assumes it has something to do with Barnes – and once upon a time he would have been involved in a discussion like that; in fact he was on several occasions, since he knew a little about evading the authorities. But he guesses he's not part of that world any more.

Eventually Steve stomps back out into the living room, his deep scowl smoothing out a little when he sees Bruce.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” Bruce replies, looking up from his book. “You okay?”

Steve sighs and comes over to the couch. “Yeah, yeah, I guess. Tony's just being difficult.”

“When isn't he?”

Steve snorts. “Yeah. What are you doing?”

Bruce twiddles the pen between his fingers and sighs. “Trying to learn... writing,” he says. He looks down at the scribbles. “It's... going.”

Steve smiles. “You draw as well?”

Bruce shrugs. “It helps.” He starts scribbling again, circles and squares. The circles are easy, but the squares present the same issue as letters; he can't move his hand in the right ways any more. “Sort of.”

“Bruce...” Steve says, scrunching his eyebrows together a little. “Have you always used your right hand?”

Bruce looks down at his hands and frowns. Is that his right hand? He guesses it is; he hadn't given it much thought. “Yeah. Why?”

“It's just the way you hold your pen... What was your handwriting like before?”

“Shit,” he says. It was nearly illegible; he learned how to use a typewriter young. Betty said he had typical doctor's handwriting, even though he wasn't that kind of doctor.

Steve nods. “Have you considered you might be left handed?”

Bruce looks at his hands again. “Uh...”

“Because people used to have funny ideas about being left handed. Do you think it's possible that someone made you use your right hand, I guess when you were very young?”

Is it _possible_? It's more than possible, it seems like exactly the kind of thing Brian would do to torture him. “Yeah,” he says, “maybe.”

Steve nods and holds out his hand for the pen. Bruce gives it to him. “The nuns at school did the same to me,” he says, taking the pen in his left hand and writing something at the bottom of the page in with lots of swoops and curls. “I'm slower with my left but I could never get the hang of doing cursive with my right hand. You want to try?”

He offers the pen back and Bruce takes it slowly. “Uh, okay.” He holds it in his left hand, figuring out how to grip it.

“Pinch it between your thumb and forefinger,” Steve says.

Bruce nods and does what Steve suggested, then touches the nib to the page. He decides to write the first five letters of the alphabet, he's pretty good at remembering their shapes now. He starts moving his hand and... it feels easier. He's not cured, but... how did he go forty plus years not knowing this?

“Wow,” he murmurs.

“Looks like it's working,” Steve says.

“Yeah,” he says, “thanks.”

“All in a day's work,” Steve says with a smile, and Bruce salutes him.

-

Something stops him from telling Tony and Jane about his discovery; he gets this stupid idea to buy Jane a card and write something in it. He figures it might be nice, a symbol that all her work with him as been for something, that he hasn't been put in permanent stasis.

He doesn't want to tell Tony, though, it'll just become a _thing_ , and Steve isn't around the next day. He sits and thinks about it all morning after Jane has gone down to the lab; today's his only opportunity, Jane's mom is going to be flying in tomorrow...

“Uh... JARVIS?”

“Yes, sir?”

“How...” He runs his fingers through his hair and frowns. “How do I... get money?”

“Are you requesting career advice?”

He sighs. “No. I need-- want to buy some—thing. Don't have money.”

“I see. Perhaps if you could find your wallet, there would be money in there.”

“Where's wallet?”

“I do not know, sir. Perhaps you should search your previous suite?”

He nods to himself and gets up. “Okay...”

He goes the one floor up to his suite and JARVIS unlocks the door, because the keycard is long gone. The place looks exactly the same as the last time he remembers being in there. There's still a cup on the coffee table, a months old newspaper beside it, and the TV remote wedged between the couch cushions.

Everything is covered in a thick layer of dust, thick enough to appear white and fill the air when he moves anything. He searches everywhere, high and low, through drawers of crap, under his bed, behind the couch cushions... Eventually he spots it sitting right in front of the TV. He sighs and grabs it.

He opens it and finds a few bills inside, he doesn't know for how much, though.

“JARVIS?”

“Yes, sir?”

He looks at the picture on the note. “Who's on... ten?”

“Who is depicted on the ten dollar bill? Alexander Hamilton, sir.”

He looks back at the picture; he does not know what Alexander Hamilton looks like. It could just as easily be Washington. He pulls a couple more notes out – these ones have Lincoln on them, Bruce definitely recognises him.

“What is Lincoln on?”

“The five dollar bill,” JARVIS says.

“How much is a card?”

“The average price of a Christmas card in New York is six dollars, sir.”

He looks at the money again. Okay, so he can do that, he's got ten at least, along with whatever else is in his wallet. “Where do I get card?”

“There is a drugstore called Duane Reade on the corner of Park Avenue and East 45th Street.”

“Uh...”

“Turn left when you exit the building, the drugstore is just past the first intersection, across the road.”

“Okay...” Can he do this? He hasn't gone out alone in ten months, when he's got split up from Jane he had a panic attack, he becomes paranoid in crowds...

And he turned forty six two days ago, he left home at sixteen, lived for years entirely alone in countries where he didn't even speak the language. He can take a walk down the block.

He goes back down to Jane's suite and grabs his coat and shoes and heads back out the door.

“JARVIS?” he calls when he's in the hallway.

“Yes, sir?”

“Don't tell Jane I'm going un—less uh... I take long time.”

“Yes, sir.”

He gets out of the building without running into anyone he knows and stands outside the doors. JARVIS said go left, pass the intersection, cross the road... He looks down at his hands; left...

He turns left and starts walking, keeping his eyes trained on the sidewalk. People looks at him, look away, look back, and he stuffs his hand in his pockets and walks faster. When he reaches the intersection, everyone is clustered at the edge of the sidewalk, so he stops as well, and looks at the walk sign. It's showing the red man, it needs to be the green one to cross. He stares up at it until it changes and the cluster of people move like the tide going out-- or coming in, or whatever. When he's on the other side, he turns... right and looks up at the buildings on the other side of the road. There's a big one, all the walls are windows, he thinks he recognises it as the drug store he used to go into occasionally. He joins a new cluster of people at the road's edge and walks with them across the road.

When he walks into the store, the doors sweep open for him and something makes a dinging sound. He looks around quickly, but no one pays attention, so he takes another few steps into the store. The lights are bright and there's Christmas music play: _have a holly jolly Christmas, it's the mumble mumble mumble_ is what he hears, and he rubs at his ear, trying to block it out.

He vaguely remembers coming into this drugstore before, but that doesn't help him find the card display, and he wanders aimlessly around the store. When someone bumps into him, he almost knocks over a display of... he's not sure, but there's a picture of a gingerbread man on the front. The guy calls out, 'sorry!' and Bruce mumbles something back and wraps his arms around himself.

He can't do this, he can't, but now he doesn't know how to get back out of the store. He doesn't have a phone, and there's no kindly teenager to help him out this time...

He stumbles down another aisle and right there in front of him is the card display. He closes his shaking hands to fists and walks over to it. It's very red and green and white, reindeers, Santas, snowmen; it's too much, too many choices. He grabs the first one that comes to hand and when he opens it, it starts to play screechy, tinny music. He stuffs it back into the rack, but it doesn't stop its manically cheerful jingle. He glances around, but there's no one in the aisle with him, then smacks at the card until it stops.

All the colours and picture start blend into one as he looks over them and he grabs another at random, bringing it up to his face to look at it. There are words on the front and he doesn't want to accidentally get card addressed to Grandma or something. He puts it back and keeps looking, narrowing his eyes a little against the brightness. He runs his fingers over the cards until he reaches something furry and white. It's a... it's a polar bear, he thinks. It's cute, the fur feels nice... He grabs an envelope and hurries out of the aisle.

He wanders some more, looking for the checkout, the music seemingly getting louder, sliding into his ear and rattling around in his brain. Finally he finds a line to join and stares at the floor, shuffling forward occasionally, the card gripped in his hand. It's only when he's at the front that he realises he's bent the card almost in two. He eases his fingers and bends the card back.

“Hi, how are you today?” the cashier asks.

“Okay,” he mumbles, and hands her the card, his hands still shaking. She smiles pleasantly and seems not to notice.

“Is that everything for you today?” she says as she beeps the card through her machine.

He nods and gives her the two fives. She smiles cheerfully.

“That'll be $6.75, so your change will be $3.25,” she says, and the till dings and opens. She retrieves the change and holds it out for him to take. It takes him a moment to realise that he needs to lift his hand, but he does and shoves the change into his coat pocket.

“Do you need a bag?”

He shakes his head wordlessly and she hands him the card and receipt with a smile.

“Have a nice day!”

He mumbles something in the range of 'you too' and hurries back out of the store.

Outside, he's turned around for a second, staring around at everything so familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, rain coming down on his head. He has enough sense to turn around, though, and sees the tower. That way, then. He stuffs the card inside his coat and starts following the crowds back home.

Getting back into the tower doesn't help his heart stop pounding so much. Thankfully there's no one in the private elevator with him and he gets back to the apartment without meeting anyone. Inside, he kicks his shoes off, put his coat back on the hook, and shoves the card under his side of the mattress. He squeezes his eyes closed and presses the heels of his hands to them, dislodging his glasses. Calm down. Calm down calm down _calmdowncalmdowncalmdowncalmdown_.

“Sir?” JARVIS asks.

Bruce grunts and stumbles to the bathroom. He grabs the valium packet from the cabinet and pops out a pill. A whole one will knock him out for couple of hours and Jane will wonder... He breaks it in half, stuffs one half into the box and closes the cabinet door. He washes the other half down with tap water and goes back out into the living room.

The valium takes longer to work, but after ten minutes he starts to feel drowsy and watches the TV vacantly until Jane comes in. Or after, really, since he doesn't quite realise she's there for a few minutes.

“Bruce?”

He rolls his head back against the couch and smiles at her. “Hey...”

“Are you okay?”

“Uh huh.”

She frowns. “I didn't forget to give you your pill, did I? JARVIS?”

“No, Dr Foster, you have not missed a dose. The next one is due in an hour and a half.”

“Okay...”

“'m just... sleepy,” Bruce murmurs. “Hard day's... work.”

She laughs a little and comes over to him. She reaches out and presses the back of her hand against his forehead. “It doesn't feel like you have a temperature...”

He closes his eyes. “'m fine.”

She hums and runs her fingers into his hair, scratching lightly at his scalp. He groans a little and tips his head back further. She scratches harder and he stretches out on the couch, arching his back before settling down again.

“I think you were a cat in a former life,” she says, laughing.

“Dog,” he mumbles, and smiles at her answering laugh.

“All right, dog,” she says, and kisses his forehead. “It's a good thing you're tired, we're going to have to get up pretty early tomorrow to meet Mom at the airport.”

“Mm...”

“Would you prefer not to go? I don't mind going on my own.”

He forces his eyes open and looks up at her. “No, no, want... come.”

She rewards him with another kiss on the forehead and slides her fingers from his hair to sit down beside him. She leans her head against his shoulder and wraps her arm around his back. “What are we watching?”

-

He's still a little drowsy the next morning as they get ready for to go to the airport, which is probably good, because the anxiety would eat him alive otherwise. They get to the airport at nine thirty and manage to get a seat near arrivals after wandering around for a while figuring out where to go. The flight is delayed by thirty minutes and they planned to be there half an hour early, so they've got an hour to wait around. Jane picks up a tourist leaflet and looks through it.

“Have you ever been up the Empire State Building?”

He shakes his head.

“Me either, maybe we should do it sometime.”

“Mm.”

She looks at him and purses her lips a little. “How are you with heights?”

“Not good,” he says.

She laughs. “Okay, maybe not, then.”

“We could stay... lobby,” he says.

She smiles again. “Maybe...” She looks at her crutches, propped up beside her chair. “Mom's gonna flip when she sees I'm back on crutches. She already wants me to come back to London and have some kind of treatment out there.”

“Maybe... should?” he says. If it would help her, stop her hurting... He could live without her for a while, he could do it...

“If Tony's money can't buy a doctor to help me, Nurse Foster isn't going to be able to. She just wants to mother me, which is nice, but, you know...” She drops her hand over his and squeezes.

“Okay,” he says.

They watch people walk out of arrivals, greeted by friends and family, for few minutes. He sees all sorts of flags, greens, reds, blues, yellows, but he can't remember where most of them are for.

“What was India like?” Jane asks.

He frowns; it feels like all happened to a whole other person. He can't imagine living in isolation like that now, like he had for years and years; he can't imagine wanting to. Maybe that's some kind of breakthrough.

“It was, uh, hot and... nice. Used to have a tan. It was busy, I liked loud, I liked being... dis—appeared.”

She smiles. “Did you know many people out there?”

He shakes his head. “No, just people I trea—ted. I didn't... have friends, after... Brazil.” He's told her about Brazil before, Blonsky chasing after him, destroying parts of the city, the stress and danger he brought to the doors of people who had showed him kindness, the dog...

Jane rests her head on his shoulder and squeezes his hand again. “Do you miss it?”

“No,” he says, “no.”

“Good,” she says softly.

They talk idly for a while, Jane turning and looking out the arrivals board every now and then, until it says that her mom's plane has landed. Bruce's hands start to twitch.

“It's okay,” she says.

“Mm.”

She sits up and smiles. “Mm,” she echoes and kisses him.

He twitches more and more, though, and starts gnawing at his fingernails before getting up and starting to pace.

“Hey, it's okay,” Jane repeats, starting to look a little worried.

“Uh huh, just... helps,” he says. That valium has sure worn off now.

“Okay,” she says softly, eyeing his jerky movements. “Do you want to wait in the car?”

He shakes his head and rubs his hands over his face. “No, okay, okay, I'm okay.” He feels her tug on his pant leg and looks at her from between his fingers.

“Can you sit down again?” she says quietly. “I think, uh, the staff are starting to look over. Airport staff aren't the most understanding bunch.”

“Oh,” he says and drops his hands. “Okay, okay.” He stumbles back into his seat and his twitching gets much worse. He leans forward and presses his head to his knees.

Jane wraps her arm around him and rubs his shoulders. “You're okay,” she says, “give me your hand.”

He holds one trembling hand out to her and she pulls it into her lap, palm up, and starts drumming her fingers against it. Her rhythm is steady and light and he closes his eyes, focusing on it. Tap tap tap tap, tap tap tap tap... He takes a breath and lifts his head.

“Better?”

“Uh huh,” he says.

She smiles and keeps tapping on his hand – his heart rate starts to slow again, until he's lulled back into pleasant blankness. His eyes slide shut a couple of times before Jane shakes him fully awake.

“There she is,” she murmurs.

He stares at her for a second, his mouth slightly open, then looks around at the stream of people coming out of the doors. He has trouble making out people's features.

“Can you help me up?”

He looks back at her, blinks, then stands up and leans in to help her. She puts her arms around him and he gets her onto her feet, then picks up the crutches and passes them to her.

“Thanks,” she says, gripping them tight. She leans up and gives him a peck on the lips. “We'll survive this.” 

He smiles and puts his hand on her back as they approach the barrier. Jane waves and a woman starts walking over to them. As she gets closer, Bruce can see that it's the same woman from when Jane was on Skype, and his heart starts to pound. He grips the railing.

“Mom,” Jane says.

Her mom glances at the crutches for a second, then leans over and hugs Jane. “Oh, you feel bony...” she says.

Jane pulls back and smiles quickly. “This is Bruce, you haven't met properly before.”

“Hello, Bruce,” her mother says, and offers her hand. Bruce swallows and pries his hand away from the railing to shake hers.

“Hi,” he mumbles, dropping his gaze to her shoulder.

She holds his hand for a second longer, then lets go and takes hold of her luggage cart. “I'll come round.”

They follow on the other side of the railing until they meet up at the end. Jane's mom hugs her again and they stand around awkwardly for a moment.

“Um...” Bruce murmurs, and gestures at the cart. “I can, uh, take it, Mrs...” It feels like there are cotton wool balls in his mouth. 

“Liz,” she says, “and it's fine, I'm not that old yet.”

“Oh, I didn't, I, um...”

“ _Mom_ ,” Jane hisses as Bruce's hands begin to twitch again. “He's just being nice.”

Liz looks at him and he tries to return her gaze, but mostly looks at the space beside her, balling up his fists.

“Oh well, if you want to be chivalrous, go ahead.”

He nods and switches places with her, taking the cart. Having something to do with his hands helps and stares down at the cart as they walk, but he's still twitching. Jane catches his eye a couple of times and smiles encouragingly before making small talk with her mom that Bruce can't follow at the moment.

When they get to the car, the driver loads the bags into the trunk and Jane looks at the back seat worriedly.

“Uh... Bruce, do you... mind sitting in the front?”

He looks at the driver, who's closing up the trunk, then at the front seats. He guesses there are only two in the back.

“Okay.”

She smiles. “Thanks,” she says softly, then glances at her mom, who's around the other side of the car. “Can you help me in?”

“Yeah,” he says, and takes the crutches from her. He leans them against the side of the car and wraps his arm around her shoulders, lowering her into the seat. Liz gets in beside her and watches them as Bruce passes the crutches in and Jane kisses his cheek.

He gets in the front, beside the driver, and they start driving back to the tower. Bruce can hear Jane and Liz talking softly but he can't make out what they're saying, and when he drums his fingers against his knees, he can feel the driver glance over, though he doesn't look back at him. He tries to just watch the road, but that makes him feel nauseous. If he was next to Jane, she'd hold his hand, she always does on car rides; he doesn't like them much any more and he doesn't know why.

Finally they get home and he helps Jane back out of the car and takes Liz's bag after they get out it out. They get things settled upstairs and then Jane all but insists that her mother go to bed, citing jet lag. Liz looks like she has something more to say, but eventually goes into the guest room. 

Jane sighs and walks over to hug Bruce. “Sorry things are so awkward, you know what moms are like...” She pauses and blinks up at him. “Uh...”

He smiles. “Yeah, Susan... you know...”

“Yeah, she knew how to mom,” she says, and kisses his jaw. “You're going to be seeing her in a couple of weeks.”

He nods and presses his nose against her hair.

“Hungry?” she asks, rubbing his back.

Liz sleeps most of the day and they get on with their normal routine: Bruce works on his writing, switching to his left hand when Jane isn't looking, while Jane works on her laptop, skyping with Darcy and then Erik. There's still a nervous tension settled in his gut, so he goes down to the gym for an hour, running like a maniac on the treadmill until he drenches his t-shirt. He comes back upstairs, showers and changes clothes, then sits down on the floor and works on the puzzle. After a while, Jane rests her foot on his shoulder and starts poking his ear with her big toe. He smacks it away and she laughs, poking him harder.

“Feet smell!” he complains, tickling the bottom of her foot. She pulls it back for a second, then pushes it into his hair.

“No, they don't!” she says. “Take that back!”

“No!” he says, making a token effort to evade her. It feels kind of nice though, scratching the back of his head.

“My feet are very fragrant,” she says, punctuating it with a light push on his neck.

“Not,” he says and scoots around to face her, grabbing hold of her ankle. Behind her the door to the guest room opens and her mother looks at them. Jane looks around and clears her throat.

“Hey, sleep well?” she asks, slowly withdrawing her foot from Bruce's hands.

“Fine,” Liz says. “Are you two okay?”

“Just, uh, goofing off,” Jane says, readying to get up. Bruce stands up and gets her crutches. “Are hungry? I can make something for you.”

“Maybe just a sandwich,” she says. “I can make it myself.”

She shakes her head and pulls herself up on the crutches. “No, it's fine.”

Bruce follows her into the kitchen, his heart starting to pound again.

“Do you want a sandwich too?” Jane asks.

He shakes his head. “Have, uh, pas—ta.”

“Can you make me some?”

He glances back at Liz, who's standing at the kitchen door now. “Sure.”

They prepare the food in near silence and Bruce takes all three plates over to the kitchen table and sets them down. As they start to eat, he realises he shouldn't have chosen something he needs a fork for, because he still fucking sucks at anything that isn't finger food and he quickly gets butter on his cheeks. He wipes his face clean as subtly as he can, but he still feels Liz's eyes on him.

“You're back on the crutches,” Liz says to Jane.

“Yes,” Jane says and starts twirling pasta around her fork.

“How long for?”

“A couple of weeks.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“It's not really a big deal, it's just for now,” Jane says, nudging Bruce and gesturing for him to pass her the salt. She doesn't quite make eye contact with her mother.

“Have you been seeing your doctor?”

“Of course I have, I'm not stupid.” She takes the salt from Bruce and he thinks that she's lying to her mother: she hasn't really been going, she doesn't really go to physical therapy any more, he's had to carry her places a few times now.

“So, how's everyone back in London?” Jane says. Subject closed.

They go to bed early, Liz too, even after her nap. Bruce's heart is still thudding and his hands are clammy no matter how many times he washes them, so when Jane leaves the bathroom to put her pyjamas on after doing her teeth, he quickly takes the other half of the valium and comes back out. Jane is struggling with pulling her pyjama bottoms up but waves Bruce off when he offers to help. She scoots into bed afterwards, swinging her bad leg onto the mattress and lying down with a groan. He gets in beside her and rolls onto his side.

“Sorry things are so awkward,” she says, “it's probably... not going to get any better...”

He smiles and shakes his head. “'sokay.”

“If I get all cold and distant again, it's not because of you,” she says.

He scoots closer to her and rests his cheek on her shoulder. “Okay.”

The valium does its job, as always, and he falls into a dead sleep until he rolls out of bed the next day and stumbles out of the bedroom to get something to eat. He gets as far as the kitchen doorway, stretching his arms over his head before he runs straight into Liz. He blinks a couple of times, his brain booting up and running through the sequence _strange woman in kitchen > mother? > Jane? > Jane's mother? > Jane's mother!_. Then he looks down at his t-shirt that's ridden up over his stomach and quickly yanks it back down. Liz looks down too and Bruce realises he's wearing pyjama bottoms with reindeer on them. Jane got them for him...

He looks back up and so does she.

“Um... shower,” he says, pointing back towards the bedroom, then flees before Liz can say anything.

Jane's side of the bed is empty...

“JARVIS? Where Jane?”

“Dr Foster has been called into the lab on short notice,” JARVIS says. “She asked me to relay the message that she will be back as soon as she can.”

“Mm... Time?”

“It is twelve thirty five, sir.”

He runs his fingers through his hair and nods to himself. Maybe if he takes a long time getting ready Jane will be back by the time he comes out and he won't have to face Liz alone.

He spends forever in the bathroom, doing his teeth, gargling, flossing, standing under the hot spray of the shower until he's warm all the way through. He gets out and scrubs at his hair until it's completely dry, goes through his entire wardrobe to choose the perfect plain grey sweater, brushes his hair, and finally steps back out into the living room.

Jane still isn't home.

“Hello,” Liz says from the couch.

“Hi,” he mumbles, and goes to the kitchen to find food. He wastes some more time puttering around, deciding on what to eat, eating cookies out of a Santa cookie jar before settling on toast. He contemplates eating it in the kitchen but he's already been rude enough, so he slopes back out to the living room and peers at Liz reading on the couch.

“Hi,” he mumbles again.

She turns to look at him and smiles a little. “Bruce. Are you sitting down?”

“Uh... yeah...” He sits down next to her and puts the plate on his lap. He can already feel the tremors going through his arms. He picks up a slice of toast and starts eating.

Liz continues to read her book for a few minutes until Bruce has finished his toast, then she looks over at him. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yeah,” he says, “okay... You sleep... good?” Well. _Well_. Fuck.

“Oh, tossed and turned a bit, but then I did have that nap earlier.”

“Yeah...” He looks down at his empty plate, then clears his throat. “Uh... what rea—ding?”

Christ, he can do better than this.

“Some paperback I picked up at the airport, it's trash but it's readable.”

He nods, gaze falling to the cover. There's a topless man and a woman in a slip on it. He smiles a little and looks away.

“We have to get our pleasures where we can,” Liz says.

Bruce nods and starts to drum his fingers against his legs.

“Are you... reading yet?” she asks.

He glances up at her. “No. Can't...”

“But you can write a little?”

“Yeah, uh... bet—ter. It's-- I'm-- can't read what... I write.”

“It's hasn't got any better with time?”

He shakes his head. “No. Uh. Letters get... tumbled...” Tumbled?

“Jumbled?” she suggests.

“Yeah. Uh, get jum—bled and, and weird...”

“Like severe dyslexia,” she says, more to herself than him.

“Yeah.”

She nods slowly. “How are you dealing with all of it?”

“Oh, uh... yeah. I... I'm okay,” he says. What a thorough answer to her question. “Jane, uh, she... she helps a lot. Me...”

Liz nods some more. “She's said... How is Jane, she seems a little... distant.”

“She's okay,” he says. God, what's he supposed to say? He thinks Liz should know about how much worse Jane's been getting; he thinks she already does know, really, but he couldn't betray Jane's trust like that, especially after everything she does for him. “She's, uh... happy to be... work—ing again.”

“She always has been a workaholic,” she says. 

Bruce nods. That's the first thing that attracted him to her (well, her face and her hair and her body didn't _hurt_ ): she stayed in the lab just as long as he did. They didn't talk all that much for the first few days after she and Thor arrived at the tower, not after they were introduced and Tony said something about 'fangirling' under his breath. Jane had flushed and hurried away. But one week out, they were the only people left in lab after midnight and Bruce was staring blankly at some unworkable equation on his computer screen when Jane called him over for his advice on something. It was abundantly obvious after only a few minutes that she didn't need his help at all, but it was nice that she wanted to talk to him, and as they were scribbling down notes on scraps of paper, Bruce's heart kind of went thump- _thump_ and he knew he was in trouble.

He shifts a little and smiles. “Yeah, we used to... work. Um. Together.”

“I know,” Liz says.

“Oh,” he says, and falls silent.

“I hope that she is okay,” Liz continues. “She's changed a lot since the shooting.”

He doesn't know how to react so he just nods. Has she changed? She was more... carefree back then, he guesses, but... He's the one who's changed, he's changed so fundamentally that it takes the air out of his lungs if he thinks on it too long. Jane's just as smart and beautiful as ever.

“She cares very much for you, you know,” she says.

Bruce nods. “I do too.”

Liz nods. “The shooting really shook her. I'm not sure she's ever really recovered from it.”

Bruce blinks. “Um...”

The door opens behind them and Bruce feels a profound relief as Jane comes through the door, leaning heavily on one of her crutches. He gets up to help her and she smiles, leaning back against the door.

“Everything go okay at the lab?” Liz asks.

“Yeah, it was fine, just a minor disaster.” She looks up and kisses Bruce. “Everything okay here?” she says softly.

He nods. “Fine.”

“Good,” she murmurs, and leans against him. “Can you help me to the couch?” she says, very quietly.

The next couple of days are mildly excruciating. Jane doesn't get called back to the lab, thankfully, but each day is tense and awkward. Jane takes her out for lunch on the 23rd, just the two of them, and Bruce gets the card out from under the mattress and gets to writing it. It's pretty crumpled now, and he sighs as he smooths it out. He gets his flashcards out and sits at the kitchen table.

It takes forever, he has to run through the deck in order for each letter – he can only remember the shapes of a few letters. It must take him forty minutes to write out the card, smudging ink on the side of his hand and the card beneath. The final product is sloppy to put it _very_ kindly. It looks like the efforts of a two year old. But it's legible, or so he hopes, and he manages to get it back under the mattress before they get back.

On Christmas Eve, all three of them go out for dinner. Jane has to read the menu to him as usual, this time under Liz's gaze. There's no cutlery free version, so he labours with a steak, knife and fork, eventually getting it boxed up to go. Then they go and listen to carolers and they tell Bruce about Jane's father, Daniel, who was Catholic and loved Christmas. Bruce feels kind of ashamed at how bratty he felt about Jane leaving – at least he never expressed it.

Jane seems to enjoy at first but flags quickly and leans heavily against his side once everyone starts to disperse. He wraps his arm around her.

“Okay?” he murmurs.

She hums for a moment, then shakes her head. “My leg really hurts,” she whispers.

“Is it spas—em?”

“Yeah. How am I going to tell Mom I need to go home without setting her off? I don't need a lecture right now.”

“Uh... Say that I'm...” He makes a circular motion at his head. 

“I can't do that,” she whispers as Liz comes over to them.

“They're giving out hot chocolate, would you like two some?” she asks.

“Oh, uh...” Jane murmurs.

Bruce bites his lip for a moment, then nudges her shoulder. “Want go home,” he says.

Jane looks up at him, a frown briefly creasing her brow. “What?”

“Home,” he complains, gesturing vaguely.

Jane purses her lips and widens her eyes. “Oh,” she says, “okay.”

They have to get a driver to come pick them up because all the cabs are busy, and Liz looks kind of annoyed. Jane leans against him again, panting when Liz isn't looking. Bruce makes a further fuss about wanting to sit in the back with Jane, laying it on really thick. They get home and Jane struggles with her coat and scarf before telling Liz they're going to bed.

“It's only nine thirty,” Liz says.

“The sooner we go to bed, the sooner Santa comes,” she says with a big smile. Even Bruce can tell that it's fake.

“You've still got your boots on.”

Jane looks down at her furry boots. “Oh, I... keep them in the bedroom. I'll see you in the morning, okay?”

“All right...” Liz says, eyes flickering to Bruce for a second.

As soon as Jane through the door and fumbled to lock it, she slumps against it. “I need to get these boots off,” she whimpers, tears starting to swell in her eyes.

Bruce picks her up and carries her to the bed, pulls off the boot on her good foot, then works on the other. The boot is laced up the front, no zips, and reaches the middle of her calf muscle; he can feel that the muscle is pulled tight and he's sure her foot is bent so far forward that it's trapping the boot on her foot. He undoes the laces and works on loosening them all the way down, pulling the two halves apart until the boot gapes open. He takes hold of the bottom of it and begins to twist it upwards. She cries a little more, covering her face with her hand and he murmurs apologies until it's finally off.

Her foot is indeed bent forward, at the ankle and at the toes, everything pulled so tight it looks like it might tear through her skin.

“Pain—killers?” he asks as he reaches up to undo her jeans.

She shakes her head. “I've taken everything I can take today,” she says thickly.

“Okay,” he says softly, and tugs her jeans down off her hips all the way to her feet and gently removes them. Then he sits down beside her and lays his hand on her twitching thigh. He looks at her for a moment and she nods and picks up a cushion.

He digs his fingers hard into her thigh and she presses the cushion over her face to muffled her cry. He hates that this causes her so much pain, that he's causing her so much pain, but it's the only thing that seems to work, outside of injections of muscle relaxants. He wraps both his hands around her thigh and digs his thumbs in, rubbing in a circular motion. He watches her foot as he does it and little by little her toes start to loosen up and twitch. Jane removes the cushion from her face and wipes at her wet face and he moves his hands down, rubbing his fingers along her calf muscle and finally massaging her foot.

“Better?”

“Yeah,” she sighs, and moves her foot around. “It's good now, thank you.”

Her face still looks pinched when he comes back up to the top of the bed, though. “Still hurt?” he asks.

“Oh...” She shakes her head. “It's okay.”

“What?”

She tries to push herself up onto her elbows and winces. “It's just my back hurts, it's okay.”

“Where?”

She bites her lip for a moment. “Everywhere,” she says softly. “It feels like... sometimes it feels like I'm going to snap in two from the pressure.”

“Okay...” Bruce mumbles. “Do you... can you lie on stomach?”

Her eyebrows go up a little. “Probably.”

He nods and starts helping her take her sweater off, then her thermal vest. She doesn't wear bras that often and today is no different; it gets him every time and his dick twitches a little. He shakes it off and helps her turn over onto her stomach and leans down over her. He starts at the dimples on her back, mostly because he wants to touch them, and Jane yelps.

“It's okay, it's okay,” she says immediately after. “Just caught me off guard.”

He goes back to the massage and after a while her pained groans stop being pained and start being something else. They're muffled by the pillow beneath her so Liz can't hear them, thankfully, but his dick certainly hears them and starts to throb insistently. He ignores it and keeps going until he's sure that there's not a single part of Jane that hurts any more, not the small of her back or her shoulders or her legs or her arms. She seems to be asleep after, so he rolls her onto her back again and pulls the covers free from under her to cover her with. He's about to go jack off in the bathroom when she stirs a little.

“You're a really good boyfriend,” she mutters.

He strokes his hand over her hair. “Thanks.”

“I love you,” she adds, so softly that he wonders if his mind concocted it out of desperation.

Either way, he leans over and kisses her forehead. “I love you too,” he murmurs.

-

Tony wants everyone to come open presents under his enormous tree, so they all congregate in the late morning, including Steve,and Sam, having arrived late in the night. There are lots of shiny wrapped gifts and food being passed around, and Bruce gets sweaters and scarves and cups and a whole wealth of items that you give people when you have no idea what to get them. He gives Jane the telescope in its nice wooden box and her eyes get really big.

“Oh my God, this is amazing!” she says, and leans over to kiss him. “It's so fancy, I love it!”

He blushes a little under the praise, keenly aware of the card that he stuffed in his pocket, getting more crumpled by the minute. After the presents, Tony goes off to cook the turkey and everyone else starts talking. It takes a couple of hours by his estimation before Bruce can get Jane alone. She goes to the bathroom and he hovers outside the door waiting for her to come back out.

“Hey,” she says, “you need the bathroom?”

He shakes his head. “Mm... Got something for you.”

“Oh,” she says, and smiles. “I think you got me enough already, but I'm not complaining.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the card. Jane frowns a little as she takes it from him.

“Is this...” she murmurs as she slides it out. She runs her fingers over the fur for a moment, then flips it open. She presses her lips together as her eyes skim over it. “Did you write this?”

He nods. “Uh huh. Steve said... Steve said I was left... handed. Is it... right?”

She looks up at him, the rims of her eyes turning pink. “Yeah, it's right,” she says, and throws her arms around him. “I am so proud of you,” she says, squeezing him tight.

“I went bought it myself,” he says.

She leans away slightly and looks up at him, her eyes wide. “You went out on your own?”

“Uh huh. Drug—store.”

“You went to the drugstore?” She's crying now, her cheeks turning pink as well. She leans back into the hug, pressing her cheek to his chest. “I'm so proud of you,” she repeats.

He runs his hand down her back. “Thanks,” he murmurs.

The food is great, of course, and the Bruce manages to follow some of the conversation, even participate a little. Every time he speaks, everyone hushes up to listen, which is slightly humiliating but he guesses he shouldn't be unhappy that they care enough to listen to him stumble over his words.

Liz leaves a few days later, on the twenty eighth. It's a morning flight, she has to be there by eight thirty am and Jane says that Bruce doesn't have to come but he insists. He feels pretty keyed up the night before but he knows he can't take any valium or he'll never be able to roll out of bed at six thirty. He sleeps fitfully, waking up when he feels Jane get out of bed and drifting off again for a while more. When he wakes a second time, it's to voices out in the living room. He can't make out what they're saying, but they get louder and quieter, as if arguing. He rolls out of bed and goes to the door to listen.

“...think you should reconsider,” Liz says.

“I'm not coming back with you, Mom,” Jane says. “It's not like I'll get any better treatment there than I can here. Tony can literally fly doctors in from anywhere in the world and he's paying for everything.”

“I can look after you at home.”

“I don't need looking after.”

“Are you sure it's not that _you've_ got someone to look after?”

“Mom...”

“I just want you to be happy, Jane. When you were with Thor--”

“I'm not with Thor any more,” Jane says. “He left, he's not coming back, I don't want him to come back.”

Liz says something else that Bruce can't make out, and then Jane says something about taking a shower and he hears the clack of her crutches on the floor. He hurries back to bed and pulls the covers up, closing his eyes as Jane enters the room.

The trip to the airport goes off without any problems and Liz is in the air and gone by ten. Jane seems cheerful, suggesting that they go out for lunch. Bruce agrees and tries not to act sullen while he looks at her from across the table. She seems happy now and he'd thought that she'd been unhappy all those weeks before the shooting, hadn't he? But then maybe he'd just imagined it, it certainly worked out well for him.

Jane decides that they should get their food boxed up after they've been sitting there for a little while, Bruce picking at the edges of his sandwich, making crumbs. 

Her mom said she never got over the shooting; Jane said she felt responsible for it happening... What if she feels so guilty that she made herself love him, or like him, or... The first time he tried to kiss her, she pushed him away; Tony said she spent practically everyday with him when he was still alternating between drooling and playing with coloured blocks. How can anyone love a person after seeing them like that? How can a middle-aged man going to a drugstore alone be a cause for celebration that she's interested in? She has three degrees and years of research under her belt; she's too smart for this.

Jane stays cheerful in the run up to Jen's party; too cheerful, maybe. Bruce doesn't even know any more. On the afternoon of the thirty first Jane goes into the bedroom and tells him to stay in the living room until she's finished dressing up. He dutifully sits out in the living room and does his writing, scratching at the page with his left hand until it cramps and he has to drop the pen. The result on the page is a smudgy mess and he shoves the book off his lap and turns the TV on.

When Jane comes back out she's wearing a black dress with thin straps, pink lipstick, and she's done something with her hair that's made it all wavy; it's grown so much it goes past the middle of her back, curling up at the ends.

“How do I look?” she asks softly.

He smiles. “Beautiful.”

She laughs a little, glancing away.

Before they leave, he goes into the bathroom to pee and his eyes fall on the cabinet. He's feeling pretty tense about having to mix with people he doesn't know, maybe he could just take the edge off... He breaks a pill into four and takes just one quarter before washing his hands and going back to the living room to join her. By the time they arrive at Jen's, he feels a little calmer, a little less jangly.

Jen lives in Brooklyn, in the kind of brownstone she always said she'd live in. When they get into the lobby they realise that there's no elevator. Jane looks at the stairs with a pursed mouth.

“Which floor?” he asks.

“Third,” she murmurs. “That's a lot of stairs on crutches...”

“Carry?”

She looks round at him and smiles. “Do you mind?”

“Course not,” he says, and stoops to pick her up.

They don't meet anyone on the stairs, much to Jane's relief, he's sure, and it's not hard to find Jen's apartment; the door's open and there's already music playing. Bruce keeps hold of Jane as he walks over to the apartment and when he's a few feet away from the door, a man steps out. He's tall and in his sixties and older than Bruce remembers, but still... Bruce almost loses his grip on Jane and she makes a soft sound of surprise.

“Meter's running,” he says, and brushes past them.

Bruce nods and turns to watch him walk away.

“Bruce?” Jane says. “Who was that?”

“Uh...” God, he'd forgotten all about it.

“Bruce?” Jane repeats. “How about you put me down?”

He blinks and looks back at her. “Huh? Oh...”

He carefully sets her back down, helping her get stable on her crutches, and looks at the door.

“Come on,” Jane says, gesturing inside with a tip of her head.

Not many people have arrived yet it seems, although Bruce's mind is out of the apartment and down on the street by the meter right now. He keeps one eye on the door as Jen comes out of the kitchen.

“Hey, you're here!” she calls and comes over to them. “Jane, you look great!” She hugs Jane as Bruce continues to look back at the door.

“Hey,” she repeats, and taps Bruce on the arm. “Did you see Dad?”

“Dad?” Jane says. “Was that guy your uncle?”

Bruce looks back at her and nods slowly. 

“Did he say anything?” Jen asks.

“'Meter's running',” Jane says.

Jen smiles. “He's a man of few words.”

Bruce glances back at the door again at the sound of footsteps and finds Morris standing there. They lock eyes for a moment, and Morris nods at him.

“Dad,” Jen calls, “come over and meet Bruce's girlfriend.”

Morris looks at Bruce for a moment longer, then walks over to them.

“It's been a long time since you two have seen each other,” Jen says.

It has, and that's the way it was supposed to stay. Morris extends his hand and after a beat Bruce shakes it.

“Hi,” he murmurs.

Morris nods. “Hello, Bruce.”

“Dad, this is Jane Foster,” Jen says.

Jane wedges her crutch under her arm and holds out her hand. “It's nice to meet you, Mr Walters.”

Bruce puts his arm around her, more for his benefit than hers, and Morris takes her hand, his eyes dropping to her crutches for a second.

“Is Mrs Walters coming?” Jane continues.

Bruce cringes a little and Jen clears her throat.

“No, my mom died when I was a teenager,” she says.

Jane drops Morris's hand and widens her eyes. “Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't know...”

“It's fine,” Morris says. He looks at Bruce, eyebrows furrowed slightly. “I heard about what happened, I'm sorry.”

Bruce smiles a little. “It's... okay, I'm, uh...”

“We're doing okay,” Jane supplies.

Morris looks at them for a long moment, then nods and smiles very, very slightly. “I'm glad.”

“Do you guys want to sit down?” Jen says.

Jen installs Bruce and Jane on a couch across the room and thankfully Morris stays away. Jane leans back against the couch cushion and whistles low.

“Wow, that guy is cold. Has he always been like that?”

Bruce nods. “Yeah. Uh... he was... didn't like me.”

She frowns and rubs his arm. “He's a dick.”

“Mm... he was... okay.”

“Dick,” Jane repeats.

Jen brings out wine and food for the steadily growing amount of guests. Jane drinks a glass of wine, then a second, smiling at Bruce over the rim.

“You're not the only one who can get drunk,” she says.

Bruce raises his eyebrows.

“Stop judging me,” she murmurs, tipping her nose back into the glass.

They don't move from their spot for a good hour, he figures; Tony and Pepper aren't arrived yet from their corporate thing, and Jen comes back and forth to the couch but otherwise no one talks to them, which is just fine by Bruce. Jane rests her head on his shoulder and plays with his hand. She runs her fingertips along the lines of his palm and hums to herself.

“Your lifeline is telling me that you're a handsome devil,” she says in a silly voice.

“Don't think it works like that,” he says.

She clicks her tongue and bends his fingers into his palm. “Shh, I'm the palm reader here.”

“Sorry.”

She nods her head once with a little 'hm!' and bends his hand to look at his knuckles. She runs her fingers over the hair. “You shaved them again.”

“Huh?”

She looks up at him. “When you were... in the coma--” She wrinkles her nose unhappily. “--your knuckles got really hairy and I figured out you shaved them.”

“Oh,” he says.

“You're _vain_ ,” she says, grinning, and digs her finger into his stomach.

He smiles back. “I guess so...”

“Aunt Susan!” Jen says from across the room, seemingly louder than she needed to.

Bruce blinks at Jane as she widens her eyes. She tips her head up to at what's going on behind him then glances back at him.

“It's Susan,” she says.

“Yeah...”

She nudges his shoulder. “Go say hello.”

“Mm...”

She pushes him harder, nearly shoving him. “Go!”

“Fine,” he mumbles, and gets up. He keeps his eyes on the floor as he walks across the room to his aunt. He only has vague memories of her time spent with him in New York. Tony and Jane have told him that she was devoted and he believes it, because she was always too nice for her own good, but as far as he's concerned he hasn't really seen her since he was twenty four.

“Bruce...” Susan says quietly when he reaches her. He glances up and smiles a little.

“Hi, Susan,” he says.

“Hello, Bruce,” she says, and presses her lips together. She swipes at her eyes and clears her throat. “Oh, come here,” she adds, and stretches her arms out to him.

From behind her, Jen makes a 'go on' gesture with her head. He takes a deep breath and steps in for a hug. Susan has a tight grip, tighter than he remembers, and she squeezes his arms and rubs his back.

“Uh...” he murmurs.

Susan lets go after another few seconds and steps back, keeping her hands resting on his arms. “How are you? You look good.”

“'m okay,” he mumbles. “I'm... better talking. Spee—ch. Uh.”

“You're much better,” she says. “You look so healthy.”

She looks old; her thick brown hair is turning coarse with white strands, she's got lines around her eyes and her mouth and her face seems thinner than its previous roundness. That's twenty years of ageing he's missed.

“Hey, Susan,” Jane says, coming up behind Bruce. She looks at him and smiles. “I made it over!”

“Oh, Jane, it's so nice to see you again!” Susan says and hugs her too. “You look wonderful!”

Jane laughs a little and moves to lean against Bruce's side. He puts his arm around her and Susan's eyes seem to twinkle.

“You don't know how thrilled I was to hear that you two were dating. I know you're going to be so happy together.”

Jane looks up at him and smiles; he smiles back, wondering if Susan's right. If he thinks Jane's happy and she thinks Jane's happy, maybe she is, maybe her mother is just stuck in the past, preferring Thor over Bruce. He wouldn't blame her. Maybe Jane didn't just talk herself into loving him because he needed looking after. Maybe she really does think that a mentally ill, brain-damaged man is a catch...

The four of them go back to the couch and talk, though Jen is up and down all evening. Morris comes over once, to say hello to Susan, then goes back to the kitchen.

“Don't mind him,” Susan says to Jane. “He's always been anti-social.”

“It's fine,” Jane says airily, sipping on another glass of wine.

She's getting quite drunk now, leaning heavy and warm against his side. He keeps his arm around her waist and she rambles a little about work and her mother and other things. He remembers similar evenings to this months ago. He remembers sitting on the floor of Tony's penthouse with bottles of wine sat in front of the three of them. He didn't drink, but Jane and Tony made up for his temperance, holding court about everything and nothing. He sat with his knees to his chest, listening to them talk and afterwards escorted Jane back up to her apartment. She was so warm and alive beside him, waving her hands as she talked. When they reached her door, she leaned up and kissed him on the cheek and he thought about turning his head and kissing her for real; he thought for a second that she might go for it before coming to his senses and realising he'd be taking advantage of her drunken state.

Now he literally has her in his arms, happy and raining affection down on him and he can't stay out of his own head long enough to enjoy it.

“I wish I could dance,” she says with a heavy sigh.

“What?” he says.

“I mean, not just because of my bum leg, I just can't dance at all. I've got three left feet.”

“Two,” he says.

“Hm? I used to watch ballroom dancing as a kid... Oh, and figure skating! I wanted to be a figure skater but I don't have good balance...”

“Sorry...” he murmurs, glancing up at Susan for second. She smiles indulgently.

“It's okay. I can ski a bit, I mean, it's just shuffling along in the snow. I tried roller-blading but I knocked out my front tooth smashing into a wall. I nearly swallowed it!” She looks up at him with her eyebrows drawn together. “You can't tell, can you?”

He smiles and runs his hand over her hair. “No.”

“Good,” she says and widens her eyes mischievously before kissing his cheek.

“I'm going to get some food,” Susan says, standing up. “Would you two like anything?”

Jane whips her head around. “Oh! Cake!”

Susan laughs. “Bruce?”

“Mm, same.”

She nods and leaves for the kitchen. Jane looks back at Bruce and smiles. 

“I kind of yelled 'cake' at the whole room, didn't I?”

“Kinda.”

She laughs and kisses his cheek again.

Tony and Pepper arrive at just after eleven. Bruce knows this because someone – he doesn't know who they are – announces they're an hour away from the countdown just a little while before they come through the door. They immediately draw the attention of everyone in the room, or almost everyone, at least.

“I don't know why everyone falls over themselves about Tony,” Jane says seriously.

“He's... hand—some,” Bruce says. “Mm... and rich.”

“Rich, sure, but handsome?” She shrugs. “He's okay. He's not as handsome as you.”

Bruce barks his laughter, earning him a couple of glances from people nearby, and shakes his head.

“It's true,” she says, pinching his arm. “Women look at you when we're out, you know.”

He rubs at his arm and smiles. “Not... 'cause that,” he says.

“Yes, because of that,” she argues. “And anyway, you're much smarter than him too.”

He snorts. Maybe before, he was smarter, _maybe_ , but not now.

“I was so excited to meet you that first time,” she says. “Tony was whatever but it was the best thing ever, meeting you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah! I was all excited and didn't know what to say and then Tony said I was a fangirl and it took me forever to think of something to say to you...”

He smiles. “Me too.”

“Yeah?”

“Uh huh. I... uh, always... never knew...” He looks at her and shrugs.

“Yeah,” she says, and leans her head back against his shoulder.

When it comes closer to midnight and everyone starts moving to go up onto the roof, Jane looks at him worriedly and asks if the sound of the fireworks is going to be too much for him. It probably will be but he shakes his head – he has to learn how to have fun again sometime.

He has to carry her up the steps to the roof, maneuvering through the narrow stairwell.

“Is her ladyship enjoying herself?” Tony calls from the bottom of the stairs as Bruce reaches the top. Jane giggles and gives him a royal wave over Bruce's shoulder.

It's cold on top of the roof, an icy wind ruffling their hair, and when Bruce puts her down she huddles against his chest.

“How long?” he asks Tony.

“Five minutes.”

“Should've brought my coat,” Jane mutters.

“Want me to get it?”

She shakes her head. “I've survived worse,” she says.

He smiles a little and kisses her forehead.

There's lots of chattering going on around them and Tony sets up audio of one of the New Year's celebration coverages; when they're a few seconds out from the countdown, Jen yells for everyone to be quiet, in a surprisingly loud voice. She was never one for raising her voice before.

Jane takes a step back and looks up at him with a big smile lighting her face.

“Five, four, three, two--”

Jane leans up on 'one' and puts her hands over his ears. He wraps his arms around her waist and then she kisses him, as the fireworks go off around them. She keeps her hands in place after the initial blast of fireworks have passed, pulling away just a little to kiss his chin. He looks at the fireworks going off over her head, the noise muffled by Jane's hands, and smiles. She's always knows what to do.

They leave not long after; Jane's impressively tipsy, but also achy and cold and tired and did she mention cold?

There are lots of goodbyes, Susan hugs him twice and pets his hair for a moment, Jen hugs him once, Morris nods, and then Tony and Pepper's driver takes them home.

Jane hums something the entire time they're getting undressed and dressing for bed. It's aimless and tuneless but nice nevertheless. He gets into bed beside her and begins to roll over onto his side when she stops him with a gentle tap.

“I want to cuddle with you tonight,” she says.

“What about leg?”

She clicks her tongue and eases herself onto her side facing him. “Fuck my leg.”

He snorts and pulls her into his chest. “Okay.”

She smooths her hand out over his t-shirt and pats his chest before laying her head down. He turns the light off and closes his eyes. The effects of the valium have mostly worn off, but he still feels sleep pull at him.

“Bruce?” Jane asks.

“Mmhm?”

“What's the deal with you and your uncle?”

Bruce opens his eyes again and looks up at the faintly lit ceiling. “Mm... just... don't like me. Doesn't...”

“But why?” Jane says, running her palm up to his collarbone. “Susan said you were a sweet kid, why's he got such a problem with you?”

“I...” He takes a breath and shakes his head. “I-I dunno...”

“Oh come on,” she says, raising her head. He can see the outline of her face against the curtains. She gives him a gentle nudge. “Did you do something to him? Did you, like, steal his car or... or, oh, he was the sheriff, right? Did you get arrested for something? It's okay, I won't judge.”

He squeezes his eyes shut and turns his head away, making a small noise that's maybe supposed to be the beginning of a sentence, or maybe a cry...

“Bruce?” Jane says softly. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to push...”

“I didn't...” He drags his palm hard across his mouth. “Didn't... get arrested... for it...”

“Didn't get arrested for what?” she asks.

“I... um... Uh...” God, it'd be hard enough to say anyway, without all his impediments. He's never said this to anyone except Morris and his own reflection. “Mm... when I was... twen—twenty four I...” He opens and closes his mouth a couple of times, his heart starting to speed up. Jane moves her hand right over it and presses lightly. “I... killed my father...”

“You...? Okay...” She doesn't move away, or move at all, even. In fact, she becomes unnaturally still, still pressing on his chest. “Do you... want to tell me about it?”

No. No, no, no, no, no. But he can't just leave it there, can he? “Um, uh, uh...” God, he feels out of breath. “It was Thanks—giving. I went... Ohio and I was... visited my mother's, mother's... grave. And, and then he was there too...”

He was a spectre, Bruce's monster under the bed. At first he'd thought he was hallucinating, how could Brian be there, in a graveyard in Dayton at the very moment that Bruce was laying flowers at his mother's grave? But it wasn't a hallucination and when he thinks about it now, he realises that he was so young, he was so unprepared for it all, for living in his own head; he was just a baby.

“Bruce?” Jane says, just above a whisper.

“He... he... started talking...” He started saying things, about Mom and about Bruce; about how he regretted his actions but Bruce didn't _understand_ everything, he always thought he understood everything but he _didn't_. He said that Bruce was a bad kid, that he was evil, that he didn't have a soul, that he was just a shell. And Bruce, who remembered very little about his childhood, started to remember things that Brian had done. “And I... remembered... him doing things to me...”

Jane takes a sharp breath in, the tips of her fingers pressing into his t-shirt as she tenses her hand.

“Not... not that,” he says. Brian couldn't even bear to touch unless he was hitting him. “He, uh... mm, in—jected me with...” He ran experiments on Bruce, took his blood, gave him things that made him feel strange and listless. And then, when whatever it was hadn't worked, he took Bruce by the shoulders and held his head under water. “He drowned me. Tried.”

“I'm so sorry,” she whispers.

He nods, fixing his eyes on the ceiling. Maybe he's had brain damage right from then, from being a toddler. He thinks he remembers having trouble speaking afterwards. Maybe he's always been this way, to a degree. “So... I... I got angry. And I... swung at him. And he... kneed me in the sto—mach. And... then...” He remembers all of it, he can't claim a convenient blackout, but he changed there for the first time, he became Hulk before Hulk even existed. Or maybe he always existed. “I got up and... I got hold of his collar and... threw him into the, the stone. He died.”

And then Bruce ran. He ran and ran and ran until he found a payphone and the only person he could think to call was his uncle, Sheriff Walters, collect because he didn't have any change. It was past midnight and he roused Morris from his bed and once Morris understood what he was babbling, he told him to go back to the graveyard and he'd be there soon. Bruce vomited copiously on the side of the road, then walked back to the graveyard, his whole body numb.

“I called Mo—rris. He came,” he murmurs.

Morris had a tarp and bleach – toilet bleach, because that was all that was in the house and he couldn't risk being caught on tape at the 7/11 buying bleach in the middle of the night. They walked back to the grave and Bruce had this sudden wild hope that maybe the body would be gone, maybe Brian be alive like all the villains in horror movies always were and Bruce wouldn't be a murderer. But Brian wasn't and Bruce was.

Morris told him to get Brian's legs, and it dawned on Bruce what they were going to do. 'Why aren't you arresting me?' he asked, and Morris told him, 'this scumbag isn't worth my time, or yours'. They rolled the body in the tarp and then Bruce had to clean the blood off the headstone with the bleach. It was vile, wiping blood away from his mother's inscribed name. When he was finally done, he was crying and retching over the grave and Morris looked at him with restrained contempt as he told him to help carry the body to his car. The flowers were destroyed, but Bruce didn't have a drop of blood on him, his or his father's.

They loaded the body into the trunk and slammed it shut and then Morris told him to go home, pack his things, and not come back. Bruce agreed readily, and Morris dealt with the body alone.

“Morris drove the... drove two coun—ties away and dumped body. Mm, cops there thought, uh, mugging and... no one cared. He told me... 'don't come back here', so... I didn't.”

Jane takes a deep breath, as if it's the first time she's breathed in hours. “Did you tell Betty?”

He shakes his head. “No... I near... broke up with her...” He couldn't live with the memory of it, the thought that he was making Betty live with a murderer. He considered killing himself, he drank too much, he smoked too much pot, he picked up the nicotine habit, he lost weight, he couldn't sleep or work. After weeks of it, he called Morris, looking for redemption or even condemnation, but all his uncle had for him was 'don't call me again' and the click of the line going dead. And then Bruce got over it, little by little, and eventually his life became so bad that the incident paled in comparison, fading away into the past. Until tonight.

“Does anyone else know?”

“Just you.”

“Okay...”

“Do you... do you...” He bites his lips.

“It's okay,” she says, running her palm up his chest and closing it around his neck.

“You aren't... scared?”

“Of you?” she says, and laughs a little. “No.”

He frowns at the ceiling – is it so ridiculous a concept that someone could be scared of him? Is he so impotent now that he's been rendered harmless?

Not that he wants Jane to be scared of him, of course not. He just...

“I don't... feel bad,” he says. “About it. At all.” Even when he felt so bad he considered killing himself, it wasn't because he'd killed his father, it was just because he'd killed at all. When he allowed himself to think about it, he felt this sick pleasure deep down inside.

He'd won.

“Yeah,” she says.

“You're... taking well,” he mutters.

She laughs a little and slides her other hand down to grip his side. “I am, aren't I?”

“Why?”

“I don't know. It probably would have freaked me out once, but with everything that happened...” She turns and presses her nose into his t-shirt. “I dunno.”

He runs his fingers through her hair, frowning. Maybe the shooting did change her; now she's someone who doesn't bat an eyelid at her boyfriend having killed his own father. Did he do that to her?

“So, that's why you didn't see Susan for years?”

“Part,” he says. He didn't know what would happen if he went back; would someone figure out what he'd done, would Morris arrest him, would the ghost of Brian haunt him? He saw Brian in every mirror, every shop window, every stranger's face. He probably had his first bout of psychosis then, all the way back in 1994. Jane would have been eleven at the time.

Jane rubs her hand over his chest again. “This doesn't change how I feel about you, Bruce.”

He nods to the ceiling. It doesn't change the pity she feels, the responsibility, the obligation to look after him like a child? Does it make him even more pitiful, in even greater need of support? He's spent chunks of his life without a soul caring for him, thinking he didn't need anyone, thinking he was better alone. He had Hulk, so he wasn't truly alone, anyway.

Now he's the sole occupant of his head and it's not what he'd dreamed of for the best part of a decade, but he can't go back to living the way he was before.

“Thank you,” he says softly, tightening his arms around her.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes for everything: allusion to sexual assault (no assault takes place), child abuse, violence, blood, drowning, ableist slurs.
> 
> On a lighter note, the medical science in this chapter is very questionable.

These days, getting out of bed is one of the hardest parts of Jane's routine. The clock has just struck six am and she's awake, Bruce's arm lying across her chest where he flung it in the night. He does that most nights, waking her up in the process, but she's so wakeful it hardly makes a difference. She moves his arm away, settling it on his chest, and begins to pull herself up. It's slow work, scooting back until she's sitting up, shifting from side to side to take the pressure off the small of her back. Once she's upright, she starts scooting around until her feet are hanging over the edge of the bed. Her crutches are tucked in the space between the bed and her night stand, where Bruce put them for her last night. She gets one on either side of her and eases up onto them with a huff. Bruce mumbles something in his sleep, but doesn't stir any more than that, and Jane makes her way out of the bedroom and into the kitchen.

She retrieves her bag on the way and takes out all her bottles of pills. In the kitchen, she parcels out her doses on the counter – two Tylenol, two Advil, and two muscle relaxants – and fills a glass with water from the tap.

“Fucking drug addict,” she mutters to herself as she begins to swallow them. The second Tylenol gets stuck against her sandpaper throat and she gags against it for a moment before draining the whole glass of water to keep it down. “Fuck,” she mutters, and refills the glass to take the rest. Her throat is dry all the time now, thanks to the muscle relaxants.

She glances at the clock on the oven afterwards and tells herself that she can take more at ten thirty, then goes to the fridge and gets a yoghurt and a protein shake out. They gave her the shakes when she was in hospital after the surgery and she's continued to live off them since. At least it gives her a little bit of energy for the day.

She gets a spoon of the drawer, puts it in her mouth, then takes the yoghurt in one hand and the shake in the other and tucks her thumbs into the bars of the crutches to go back to the living room. She deposits everything onto the couch and eases herself down onto it. She leans her crutches against the side of the couch and carefully stretches out. Her back protests against it, going into spasm for a moment. Thankfully it stops and she settles against the couch with a sigh. The specialist thinks she has a herniated disc; she has an appointment to have a MRI at nine thirty. Bruce says he's going to come with her, but she thinks he should really just stay in bed. He's been so sleepy recently, sleeping away the afternoons and totally spaced out when he's awake; she said he should see a doctor but he shrugged it off.

She switches the TV onto the news and starts on her yoghurt.

“ _One year after the murder-suicide of Senator Christian Ward, we take a look at the disturbing history behind the well-respected Massachusetts family._ ”

Jane sighs and picks up her laptop from the table next to her. She keeps one eye on the news as the computer fires up but it's just the same 24/7 HYDRA coverage that it has been for over a year. CNN lap this stuff up.

She has twenty six emails, ten telling her about the new year sales, six advertising new products, five coupons, two spam emails that escaped the filter, and an email each from Mom, Darcy, and Erik. 'Check-in' emails; she gets them often. Otherwise known as: 'we're always here for you, _hint hint'_. Darcy's back in California, Mom's in London, Erik's in Iceland, and they'd all just _love_ for her to visit. Six hours to San Francisco, six to Reykjavik, seven to London, and she can't tell them that there's no way she's going any further than Brooklyn any time soon because her entire lower half is conspiring to make her life miserable. And Bruce wouldn't be able to come, his head would explode confined in a plane like that.

But if she tells any of them that, she's pretty sure all three of them would band together to kidnap her and take her back to London. She writes a quick response to her mom because otherwise she'll just get a worried phonecall, then clicks away from her emails and skims Facebook.

A little while later, she hears the bedroom door creak open and looks around to see Bruce shuffling out, rubbing at his face.

“Hey,” she says.

“Mmph,” he mumbles, palm still across his face. He shuffles over to the couch and sits down heavily, bouncing her up for a second.

“What are you doing up so early?” 

He rubs both hands over his face, then drags them up into his hair, giving that a rub before dropping his hands back to his lap. His hair goes everywhere, flopping into his face, sticking up at the back, in need of a trim. She smiles.

“Mm... hear...” He gestures vaguely at the TV.

“What did you hear?” she pushes. She never sure how much to push him about his speech. Normally she finishes his sentences for him or just lets them hang the way they are, but it takes so long for Bruce to get going in the mornings, especially recently, that she thinks maybe she should encourage him to think a little harder.

“Mm.” He squints at the TV and rubs his face again. “The... tee-vee,” he says slowly. “News?”

“Yeah, CNN,” she says. “I can turn it off if you want to go back to bed?”

He shakes his head. “s'okay,” he mumbles.

“You know it's not even seven am yet, right?”

“Mm.” He shakes his head again. “'m wake.”

“Really?”

He looks at her and smiles, his eyes half closed. She laughs and pats the cushion beside her. Bruce scoots up next to her and, after a moment, rests his head on her shoulder. She lifts her hand and cups his cheek for a moment before running it into his hair.

“Mm,” he hums happily.

She goes back to splitting her attention between the TV and her laptop. The CNN report starts to talk about child abuse and Jane quickly turns it off, even though Bruce seems to have zoned out again. He doesn't need to hear about that stuff.

After a while, Bruce stirs and stretches his arms out. “Hungry,” he mumbles. “Want somethin'?”

She gesture to her half-eaten yoghurt. “I'm good.”

Bruce rubs at his face again and nods, then kisses her on the cheek and gets up. He trips on the cuff of his pants and bangs into the wall but doesn't seem any the worse for it, so she doesn't comment. He's not the most coordinated person in the world these days, but then who's she to judge?

After he comes back out with some toast and what looks like some leftover cake from the night before, she gets up to go have a shower. Bruce asks if she needs help, but she smiles and shakes her head; she's not in too much pain. Yet.

In the bathroom she quickly does her teeth and strips for the shower, taking pains not to catch sight of herself in the mirror. Bruce might be happy to go to town on her but that doesn't mean she needs to see it.

She turns the heat up as hot as she can stand and scrubs herself down. She gets as far as soaping her hair up when her leg goes into spasm. Her whole right leg tightens up, her toes stand up straight and her muscle ripples under her skin. It passes after a few seconds but leaves her leg weak and shaky. She glances back at the seat Tony installed while she was still in hospital and sighs, backing up to sit down on it. She hates using this thing, hates that it exists at all, but she's been needing it more and more recently.

When she's done with the shampoo and conditioner, she turns the shower off and grasps the handrail to pull herself up. Her leg shudders and her knee gives a little; she clings onto the handrail for moment, looking down at her matchstick legs.

“Don't be a hero,” she murmurs, and eases herself back down onto the seat. “Bruce?” she calls.

He comes in a couple of seconds later; he must have been waiting at the door. She rolls her eyes and points to the towel. “Can you help me out?”

He gets the towel and wraps it around her before helping her out. She curls one arm around his shoulders and he leads her out into the bedroom. She tries to limit the amount of times he carries her, as fun as that can be. She feels less dependent that way.

“Can you, uh, get my hair towel and hairbrush?” she asks, smiling apologetically. Bruce is happy to do it, though – she thinks he'd be perfectly content to look after her all the time – and brings them to her.

She squeezes some of the water out of her hair and begins the arduous task of brushing her hair. It's gotten so long recently, Bruce isn't the only one who needs a haircut, but the idea of sitting in a  
salon chair for even half an hour is one she can't deal with. Her back, the forced aimless conversation, having to look at the dark circles under her eyes... She can't do any of it. Of course, she could trim her hair herself, it's long enough to just tie in a ponytail and snip the end, but somehow she never gets around to doing that, either. But now her hair is so long that she catches a knot every few inches, the strands constantly threatening to frizz up like they did when she was a teenager. Summer's going to be fun.

“Jane?” Bruce says. He's been loitering in the doorway between the bathroom and the bedroom.

“Yeah?”

“Can I...” He drops his gaze to the floor for a second and rubs at the back his neck. “Brush... you?”

“Like a horse?” she says.

Bruce laughs and shakes his head. “Yes, like a horse, obvi—ously.”

“Neigh,” she says and Bruce narrows his eyes. She holds out her hairbrush. “Go ahead.”

He takes the brush and sits down behind her. He starts at the bottom, collecting her hair in his palm and running the brush over through it gently. He hits a knot almost immediately and slows, using his fingers and a few prongs of the brush to smooth it out. She can see the two of them in the mirror opposite, Bruce hunched over slightly, concentrating on his work. He's not like her, she always goes top to bottom, tearing the brush through as quick as possible to get the torture over with. Most knots get ripped out along the way.

“You're good at this,” she says.

“Mm. I used to...” He clicks his tongue. “Brush Mom's hair.”

“Oh,” she says. Bruce stays in his hunched position, scrutinising a knot. “What was she like?”

“She...” He lifts his head a little. “She had nice hair. Not like me and... Susan's. It was al—most blonde. And long and soft. Br... He wouldn't let her... cut.”

“Oh,” she repeats.

“I liked brushing it, though,” he murmurs.

He continues brushing her hair in silence and she continues to watch him in the mirror. He catches his lip between his teeth and wrinkles his brow slightly as he works. It takes a while, but eventually all the knot are out and Bruce brushes her hair from top to bottom a couple of times before putting the brush aside.

“Do you want me to... blow it?” he says. She turns and looks at him with raised eyebrows. “Dry,” he adds, and laughs.

“Okay, yeah.”

He gets the hair dryer from the bathroom cabinet plugs it into the extension cord by Jane's night stand under her direction. He gathers her hair up and runs the dryer over it, then alternates to running his fingers through it, shaking it out. She thinks that's more for his benefit than hers, but it's nice anyway and she closes her eyes.

“Okay,” Bruce says, a couple of minutes later. “I'm done.”

Jane takes a deep breath and opens her eyes. “Oh,” she says, and Bruce smiles at her. She shakes her hair out and smiles back. “Thank you.”

Bruce leans in and kisses her, running his hand over the back of her head. She kisses back for a moment, then taps him on the cheek.

“Go do your teeth and have a shower.”

“Oh,” Bruce says, and puts his hand over his mouth. “Sorry. Do you need help dressing?”

“I'll be fine, but can you get my crutches from the bathroom?”

Bruce fetches them, then lingers for a moment before going back to the bathroom. Jane picks up her crutches and levers herself to her feet, sets her jaw against the protest of her back, and goes over to the chest of drawers to find a sweater and jeans. All the clothes she wears regularly have been moved to the top drawer of her dresser – sometimes stretching up to get stuff out of the closet hurts too much. Her underwear is in there too and she snags underpants and socks but forgoes a bra; they'll only ask her to take it off for the scan. She carefully takes her collection back to the bed and sits down. She opens up her towel and quickly tugs on the sweater, keeping her eyes on the ceiling so that she doesn't see anything, then picks up the underpants and jeans. Her favourite part of dressing. She leans down and hooks the underpants around her feet, lifts her good leg and works them up to her hips, then repeats with the jeans. When she's got the two around her thighs, she pushes herself up on her good leg and yanks them the rest of the way up before falling back to the bed. After that performance, her socks are a snap.

She presses a hand to her stomach and takes a deep breath.

“Your hair's in the drain thing,” Bruce complains from the bathroom.

She smiles a little. As if she doesn't find his hair everywhere. “Sorry,” she calls. “Do you want me to clear it out?”

“No,” Bruce replies, like she knew he would, and a moment later she hears a soft, 'yuck'.

They leave half an hour later after agreeing to go out and do something fun in the city once her appointment is over. Jane's hasn't had 'fun' in months and she's sure Bruce would rather come straight home again, but he agrees.

At the hospital they make her change into a gown and sit in the waiting room with all the other gowned patients and their fully dressed partners. Most of the men are reading a magazine; Bruce is pulling at his fingers and moving his shoulders from side to side.

“You okay?” she says quietly.

“Uh huh,” he says, and smiles quickly.

“Don't like hospitals?”

He shakes his head, pressing his lips together apologetically.

“Do you want me to call Tony?”

“No, it's okay,” Bruce says. “I should worry... about you.”

She shrugs. “It's just scan, it won't hurt.”

“Mm. Are you okay?”

She smiles and knocks her shoulder against his. “I'm okay.”

“Jane Foster?” a nurse calls, clipboard in hand.

“Hi,” she says, and Bruce gets up to help her out of her seat. “Oh,” she says. “Give me my phone for a second.

Bruce gets her phone out of her bag and gives it to her. She puts in her passcode in and brings up Candy Crush before handing it back to him. He laughs a little and palms the phone. He's got pretty good at Candy Crush recently and it's good for his critical thinking skills, she thinks. She normally takes her phone back when he gets too agitated about losing, though.

“I won't be long,” she says, and follows the nurse down the hall.

They direct her to a bed and she lies down and stares up as she's pulled into the tube. Bruce would hate it, but she finds it quite soothing. Darcy would pull out her extensive knowledge of Psychology 101 and say that it's to do with going back into the womb. Whatever, Jane likes it.

By the time it's over, she's nearly dozed off and the technician has to rouse her and help her sit up. When she comes back into the waiting room, Bruce hops to his feet and follows Jane into the small changing room to help her get dressed again.

“What level are you on now?” she asks as they leave the waiting room. She nods to the nurses as they pass.

He hands her the phone. Level fifty. She smiles and closes the game before putting the phone in her pocket. “That's really good,” she says.

“I was... had top score on Duck Hunt when I was a teen—ager.”

“At an arcade?”

“Uh huh.”

She laughs. “You're so old.”

“Hey! I'm...” He screws up his face. “Arcades were fun.”

Jane bumps her shoulder into his. “I'm only teasing. I did the mallrat thing as a kid too.”

“Ripped jeans and... big t-shirts?”

“Ripped jeans, band t-shirts, baseball caps, plaid. Full on grunge. I never got out of the habit of the plaid...” She smiles as they stop at a crossing. “Do you want to go get something to eat?”

“Okay. Where--”

“Dr Foster, Dr Banner, you need to come with me.”

Jane looks around at the voice and blinks. It's the blond guy that follows them everywhere, their FBI security detail. Bruce makes an unhappy noise and she looks up at him with a frown,

“Please, there isn't much time,” the guy urges, reaching out and touching Bruce's arm. Bruce flinches.

“O...okay,” Jane says, looking back out Bruce. “Come on.”

The man leads them away from the crosswalk and back down the block near the hospital. 

“What's going on?” she asks.

“HYDRA are searching for the two of you, they want to bring you in. I need to take you to a safe location. Come on, hurry.” He leads them further, setting a fast pace, too fast for Jane, and takes them around the side of the hospital. There are a couple of paramedics standing around, but otherwise it's empty.

“I need to call Tony,” she says, and pulls her phone from her pocket.

“No,” the man says sharply, and snatches the phone from her hand. “He's been compromised.” He tosses the phone into a nearby dumpster and says again, “Come on,” in an ever more aggressive tone.

Jane looks at Bruce, and he shakes his head almost imperceptibly. Tony's been 'compromised'? That just doesn't ring true. She glances behind them and tips her head ever so slightly in that direction; if Bruce can run fast enough, he might be able to alert someone. She doesn't think the paramedics are really paramedics...

Bruce sets his mouth to a flat line and looks at the man.

“Go,” she whispers, but he's already taking long strides forward, lifting his arms to grab hold of the agent. HYDRA agent. The agent swings around before Bruce can even make contact, and slams a taser into his neck. Bruce convulses and goes down just as something impacts with the back of Jane's legs and she goes down too; it feels like something snapped inside her and she howls in pain. Bruce pushes himself onto his hands and knees, and the agent kicks him first in the stomach and then in face as one of the 'paramedics' picks up her crutches and leaves her on the ground. Bruce growls and spits blood before rearing back up onto his feet.

“He doesn't go down easy,” one of the paramedics comments.

Jane's vision is greying around the edges, shrinking down to a pinpoint; she watches Bruce advance on the agent, blood pouring from his mouth and his nose, hands out to grab the man. The agent doesn't even flinch and pulls something out of his pocket.

“Bruce!” she shouts.

“Shaddup,” one of the paramedics says and kicks her in the back. She shrieks and Bruce looks over at her. The agent plunges a needle into his neck and his eyes roll back in his head without warning. He falls to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

“Bruce!” she yells again, seeing him bleeding all over the laboratory floor.

“Don't get any of his blood on you,” a paramedic says. They pick him up and carry him to an open ambulance. That's how they're going to get away – two injured people in an ambulance won't raise any suspicion.

She plants both her hands on the ground and tries to pull herself against everything in her body screaming for her not to, but her upper body just isn't strong enough. She remembers what her parents used to tell her to do if she was mugged.

“Fire!” she screams, “fire, fire!”

“Shut her up!” one of the paramedics yells as the two of them strap Bruce down. The agent stalks over to her, face blank, and picks her up by the back of the sweater, like a ragdoll. She keeps screaming 'fire', but is quickly thrown into the back of the ambulance along with Bruce. One of the paramedics sticks her with a needle and the ambulance doors slam shut as her vision fades out.

-

It feels like he's been asleep for a very long time. There are people all around him, voices, machines beeping, needles being poked into his skin, light touches on his hand, fingers in his hair...

He's open his eyes and he's strapped down onto a bed. He fights, he gags, he pulls at the wrist restraints until it feels like his shoulder is going to pop out of its joint.

Jane's there. She's on her crutches. Her mouth is moving. He doesn't understand what she's saying. He doesn't understand anything. She undoes one of the restraints. Bruce struggles to get the other undone. Jane comes and undoes the other one. He can't control his body, it flops and seizes and twitches while he remains stuck in quicksand. 

He blinks. Jane isn't there.

“Dr Banner,” a man says. He's tall. Bruce doesn't like his face. He looks like Daddy.

He's still strapped down. Restraints around his wrists and ankles, straps wrapped around his chest and one across his head, it feels like.

“Why—what...” His tongue is heavy in his mouth. “Hap—ning?”

The man smirks. “They said that you were a retard now. That's shoddy work on our part, apologies. We had planned to finish the procedure within hours but your friend put a stop to that. Don't worry, we'll finish the job this time.”

“Wh—why doing?” Bruce stammers. There are needles in his arm, making him drowsy, making his head funny and his eyes overlay his father on top of this man like a flickering TV screen.

“Why are we doing this?” The man tips his head to one side. “We collect weapons and you're the most fantastic of all. My predecessor was fascinated with you; I'm honouring his memory. It's somewhat disappointing to see how pathetic you really are, but we'll fix that. You have the potential to be so much more, Doctor.”

Bruce whines, tears forming at the corners of his eyes. The man curls his lip and presses a button. Unconsciousness rushes over him like a wave.

-

She comes back round to the warmth of a body very close to hers, a mixture of cologne and body odour filling her nostrils. Her sweater moves against her skin.

“Hey, she's not wearing a bra.”

“She's not here for that,” another voice says.

The first man, the man who smells, moves away from her and she opens her eyes ever so slightly. She's in a room split in two by thick glass, strapped into a chair, a pain radiating out from the small of her back so bad that she can't even properly register it any more. She can feel her legs but they're numb all over. Something is very wrong. 

There are two men in the room, one in a t-shirt and jeans – one of the paramedics – and another with dark hair, maybe black. He keeps it short, has classic features, high cheekbones, chiselled jaw. He could be handsome but there's something off about him, she feels it. He seems familiar.

He turns and locks eyes with her. “You're awake,” he says. He is not the man who was looking down her sweater.

“Who are you?” she says.

The corner of the man's mouth tips up. “We're HYDRA. No personal names, it's policy.”

Jane swallows. “Where's Bruce?”

“He's alive,” the man says. “Being looked after.”

“You're not looking after him.” Her head feels fuzzy and thick. “Do you really... think this is going to work? We know all the Avengers. Tony, he'll--”

The man rolls his eyes. “Blah blah blah. If Stark comes to save you, we'll deal with it.”

Jane looks down at herself. She has a belt across her lap, restraints around her wrists. “What are you going to do with me?”

The paramedic leers and Handsome turns to him and says, “fuck off, okay?”

The paramedic slopes off out the door unhappily, muttering to himself. Handsome looks back at her.

“We're putting you on the payroll.”

She narrows her eyes. “You're _Nazis_. I'd kill myself before I'd work for you.”

“The Nazi thing gets exaggerated. We're just...” He shrugs. “A scientific think tank. You'll learn to love it.” He takes a few steps closer to her and she spits at him, yanking at her restraints. He wipes his face with a grimace. “Gross,” he murmurs, and picks up a needle from a nearby tray.

“I've had enough of your bitching,” he says, and leans in. She thrashes and growls and spits at him again, but he still stabs the needle into her arm. “Good night,” he says, as the drug takes its effect.

-

“Robert! Robert, come out here right now! Boy, you get out here!”

Daddy's footsteps fall heavy on the bedroom floor, Bobby can feel each vibration. Daddy stalks around the bed, breathing heavy, huffing and puffing like a wolf. Bobby is under a pile of Mommy's clothes in the closet; they smell like soap and damp and they're safe, they keep him safe.

They're just playing hide and go seek like the other kids and their daddies. It's fun. It's fun, it's fun, it's fun.

The closet door creaks open. Bobby holds his breath. It's fun. They're just playing.

They're just playing.

-

She feels worse the next time she comes round. Sluggish, sick to her stomach, eyelids heavy. She struggles against the weight, tenses against the bright lights. Handsome's still in the room with her.

“Good evening,” he says.

“Fuck off,” she slurs.

He smiles and walks over to her with a glass in his hand. There's a straw in it. “Have some water.”

“No.”

He brings it close to her face. “You need to keep your strength up.”

She jerks her chin out, knocking the glass out of his hands. The water splashes on both of them, the glass smashing on the floor.

“Fine,” he says, wiping water off his jacket. “There wasn't anything in it, if that's what you're worried about.”

“Where's Bruce?” she says, her breath coming hard and heavy.

Handsome sighs and kneels down to pick the glass up from the floor. Jane turns her head to look at him; he seems very far away, like she's looking down at him from a great height. Her feet are cold.

“Like I said before, we're looking after him.”

“You're gonna kill him,” she whispers.

Handsome gets up, blocking her view of the room entirely for a moment. Her vision swims. “We're definitely not going to do that,” he says. “You're drooling, by the way.”

“Don't do this,” she says. Maybe she can reason with him. “We don't deserve this.”

“It's not about who deserves what,” he says. “You're a scientist, you should understand; we do what we need to do.”

“You don't need to,” she says. “You don't have to do this. You don't... You could help... me...”

He looks up at her and smiles, showing all his straight, white teeth. She feels cold all over.

“That's not going to work on me, Dr Foster,” he says. “Hold tight, I'll be back.”

-

He's sick and he's sick and he's sick. Sometimes the nurses prop him up, sometimes they hold him down. There are people everywhere; there's a lady in big big big round glasses who asks him about Mommy and Daddy and about his school and his bedroom and his toys (he doesn't have any toys: Bobby doesn't have _any toys_ ). His mouth doesn't work right. He cries. He's sick.

Mommy cradles him in her arms.

Daddy's face gets very red.

-

Jane hears screaming in the distance.

-

“He's stopped screaming.”

“Fucking finally. This guy is freaking me out.”

“You know what he is, right?”

“ _Yeah_. Don't get his blood on you.”

“Fuck, no. Gloves to the elbow.”

“Yeah, man. Hand me the clippers.”

-

Handsome comes back into the room and doesn't say a thing. The paramedics return to the other half of the room, partitioned behind the glass.

“What's going on?” Jane says. “What are you gonna do to me?”

Handsome just smiles and checks his phone.

Jane's heart starts to beat faster. She tugs at her restraints again, but they hold fast. Of course they're going to hold fast; even if they didn't, she can barely feel her feet. What's she going to do? Drag herself out of here?

“That won't work,” Handsome murmurs.

There's a noise outside. Handsome glances up for a moment, brow furrowing. He didn't expect that.

The door on the other side of the glass opens. No, not opens-- it's kicked in, clean off its hinges. There are two gunshots, in quick succession; the two paramedics go down. Jane sees a quick flash of a black mask and brown hair before Handsome swears and starts undoing her restraints.

She struggles and bucks against him; he grabs hold of her hair and slaps her across the face, then drags her out of the room. He doesn't take her far, her feet twitching uselessly the whole way, and throws her into another room. Her head impacts with the floor, her teeth snapping closed on her tongue, and she slides a few feet as the door is slammed shut again.

-

Daddy says, “I've had enough of you.” 

Bobby runs but Daddy is faster. He grabs him by the back of his t-shirt and carries him to the bathroom.

The bath is full of water. Daddy never does bathtime.

Daddy puts him in the bath fully clothed – I'm not supposed to, Bobby says – and takes him by the shoulders. He pushes Bobby down; the water rushes over his ears, fills them up. It goes up his nose and into his mouth, and his tears mix with the bath water. He tries to fight. He tries but Daddy's so strong and Bobby's so little...

“I think he's waking up.”

“Switch out the bag! Hold him down!”

There are hands on his shoulders and his head, his wrists are strapped down, something cold is jabbing into his neck. He can lift his head a little, the hands fumble, there's no strap any more.

“ _Hold him down_ ,” a man's voice says. The man from before-- Daddy-- Brian. He's close to Bruce, leaning over him, his hand resting on Bruce's arm. He's holding him down, he's drowning him. Bruce is so little.

Hulk roars, screams inside Bruce's head; the scream reverberates around his skull, threatening to split it open, break it right down the middle. 

He rips his left hand free of the restraint – it comes with a pop and a crunch – and lunges to the right, sinking his teeth into the man's arm. The man shrieks and tries to pull away but Bruce grabs hold of his arm with his left hand, feeling no pain at all, and clings on like a rabid dog.

“Get him-- _Jesus Christ_ \-- he'll infect--!”

Something impact with the side of Bruce's head but he doesn't feel it. Hulk doesn't feel pain like that. The blows rain down on him and it's nothing, it's an annoying fly in the corner of his eye. There's shouting from outside, something like gunfire and Bruce just holds on as the man screams like a banshee. He holds on until the man's skin tears free, caught between Bruce's teeth, and someone plunges something cold and sharp into Bruce's jugular.

-

Jane can't get up. She lies on the cold floor of the room, struggling to stay conscious. Her feet are so cold and numb now that she fears she'll be paralysed before the day is through. Not that it'll matter much, she's going to be dead soon, dying on this cold, hard floor.

The door slams open again and a gurney is shoved through. Jane can't even manage to push herself up onto her elbows before the door is shut again.

There's a man on the gurney. His hand is visible, bitten down nails... it's Bruce, it can only be him. She takes a deep breath and starts to drag herself over. Her arms burn and shake with the effort but she makes it over and pushes herself into a sitting position.

“Bruce?” she says, and reaches up to touch his hand. It's cold and slack. Tears spring to her eyes. “Bruce?” she whispers, knowing she's not going to get an answer. She reaches up higher, sinking her teeth into her lip to stop from sobbing, and presses her fingers to his pulse.

She closes her eyes.

Bruce's pulse beats steady against her fingers. 

“Oh God,” she cries. She presses her hand to her mouth and allows herself a minute to cry, almost to the point of hyperventilation, then wipes her face, sucking in several deep breaths. If he can stay alive, so can she.

“Okay, Bruce,” she says, and reaches up again, this time gripping the edge of the gurney tight. “I'm coming up.”

Her arms feel the weakest they ever have, the gurney tips a little but stays upright, and her feet slip along the ground when she gets them under her. She feels the pressure of them pressed against the floor, but not much else. She keeps going, locking her elbows in, squeezing her eyes shut against the sudden rush of blood to her head, and then finally she's up.

She drapes herself over his body, breathing hard, then looks at him. His head's been shaved, there are lines and crosses drawn in black marker on his skull. She touches his skin with shaking hands; they were going to perform brain surgery on him. What were they going to do to him?

He has blood all down him, all around his mouth and down his chin, dried and crusted up around his nose, fresh and pumping out of a cut above his eyebrow. She touches the new blood, rubbing it between her fingers – he's always been so vigilant about never bleeding near anyone.

There's gunfire outside, shouts and screams that sound not too far away.

Bruce told her about the bottle factory once, how a tiny drop of his blood got into the soda and the guy that drank it briefly became incredibly strong before being hospitalised with radiation poisoning. He didn't suffer any long term effects, as far as Bruce knew, though...

She rubs the blood between her fingers again and looks back at the door. It sounds like a war zone out there, Bruce is out cold, and she can't feel her legs. Whatever's going on, she doesn't think the two of them are the top priority.

She stares at her red stained fingers; she's got to die one day, but she's not going out without a fight.

“Sorry, Bruce,” she says, and sticks her finger in her mouth. She licks the blood off her finger, it tastes how blood normally tastes, vaguely coppery, nothing unusual. She sucks her finger clean, then wipes her hand dry on her pants. She doesn't feel any different and wonders if she should try some more.

A ripple goes through her, from the top of her head to the soles of her feet. She gasps and her vision blurs, her muscles all contract at once, the pain of her leg spasms multiplied infinitely; she falls back to the floor. Her hands have locked into claws, though when she looks down at them, she can barely see through the haze that's come over her vision.

Another ripple goes through her, shooting up her spine like her back's been set on fire. She screams, the sound so loud that it seems as if it will shatter her brain. Her muscles contract even further, her skin hardens and swells. She's going to split open, die in strips of the woman formerly known as Jane Foster. She screams louder and longer, unable to move, her body turned to stone inside.

And then it's over. Her muscle release all in one rush, her heart starts beating double time, she pushes herself to her feet without a thought. She stands and she can hear everything, feel _everything_.

She looks at Bruce. He's strapped down in five different places, wrists, ankles, chest. Wrists and ankles are metal, chest a long leather strap. She goes to that one first, tearing the leather clean in two. Then the thick metal cuffs. Her heart thuds against her chest, her fingers tingle. She works her fingers between his wrist and the metal and pulls; the hinge and locking mechanism snap after a second, the second just as easily, and the ankle restraints pose no problem at all.

She grips his shoulder and shakes him. “Bruce, wake up,” she says. Her voice seems amplified, bouncing off the walls and drilling into her head. It doesn't rouse Bruce, though.

“Okay,” she murmurs, then cringes at the sound. She leans in and wraps her arm around his shoulders, pulling him up. His head flops back against her arm. 

The noise outside the door triples, she can hear every hit and yell and shot. She needs a weapon.

She lays Bruce back down carefully and looks around. The room is empty, just them and the gurney. It looks like it was a boiler room once, there's a big cylindrical boiler in the corner; that's not much help to her. She looks at the walls: they're unpainted concrete, exposed pipes running everywhere like that old Windows screensaver.

That might work.

She picks a medium sized one, not too wide to get her hands around, but not skinny either. She grips it, placing one foot on the wall below it – God, she can lift her leg up high now – and pulls. The force of it throws her backwards, pipe in her hands, sliding across the floor. Water starts pouring out of the connecting pipe. Jane smiles; this feels right.

She jumps back up and goes to the door. It's locked from the outside, a sheet of metal running the length of the door, overlapping with the door frame, an extra piece of metal around where the doorknob must be on the outside, though there isn't one on the inside. She puts her ear to the door and listens. There's fighting close by, in the corridor outside; she can hear every little sound, yet somehow knows where they're all coming from.

She leans the pipe against the door and runs her hand over the metal fringe. There's no room to pry her fingers underneath, not even her fingernails. The door itself though, that's just wood; it's strong, solid wood, but still wood. She closes her hand to a fist and aims for just past the metal flap. 

The first punch dents the wood, the second and third send splits radiating out, the fourth, the same. It'll work, but it's going to take time. She glances at the pipe; the copper is sharp at both ends, maybe sharp enough to cut. She picks it up and points one end at the door, slamming it into the wood like a battering ram. It takes three hits to see a sliver of light coming in from outside. She drops the pipe and punches her fist through, twisting her hand to the side to find the door handle. Her fingers graze it and she twists her hand a little more to get a grip on it and turn it. The door opens.

She grabs the pipe and steps out into the corridor. It's chaos outside, no one noticing her for a few seconds. Then a man comes running at her and she swings the pipe, catching him around the face and bringing him down to the floor. Two more guys run at her and she does the same, her hair whipping around into her face as she swings.

At the end of the corridor, a man is pressed against the wall, shooting at someone around the corner. When Jane steps to the side, she sees that it's Handsome, his profile is one she's not going to forget for a while. She walks towards him, preternaturally calm, and calls out, “Hey.”

It's stupid, he has a gun, she only has a pipe. She doesn't care. He turns to look at her and his face registers surprise before she clocks him around the jaw. He goes down, the gun flies out of his hand and goes off, shooting into the wall. Handsome starts to push himself up and she swings the pipe over her head and brings it down on him again. He throws his arms up to protect himself but it makes no difference. She's stronger than him now.

They're all dead, the paramedics are dead, the men that shot her and Bruce are dead; there's no one else for her to take her frustrations out on, except for this man right here. Poor Handsome.

She keeps hitting him for a few minutes, getting stronger with every blow, angrier. She remembers hammering through the door, the sharp edge of the pipe. Handsome is unconscious now, bleeding all over. She turns the pipe in her hand so that the end is pointed down, and stands there, staring at him.

“It'll feel good,” a familiar voice says. She keeps looking at Handsome for a moment, then looks up at the man who spoke. A black guy, the right side of his face scarred up. She looks back at Handsome.

“And, if you're wondering, he does deserve it,” the guy says.

She blinks. She looks back at the guy. “You're the guy that saved us,” she says. Her voice sounds very far away.

“Yeah.”

She nods and looks back down at Handsome. Bruce is still in the boiler room. She drops the pipe. “I have to get Bruce.”

She turns around and walks back to the boiler room. Bruce is still unconscious, though he's muttering slightly. She puts her arm around his back and pulls him up, draping his arm over her shoulder. It slips away and she pulls it back up, closing her free hand around his forearm.

“Need help?”

“No,” she says, and pulls Bruce off the gurney. The weight of him is no problem but he's like liquid in her hands, constantly sliding downwards as she drags him to the door.

“Two left turns and one right,” the guy says, pointing down the corridor. “All the doors are open.”

“Who are you?” she asks.

“My name's Mike,” he says, and smiles a little.

She smiles back. “Jane.”

“I know,” he says, “I've been keeping tabs on you guys.”

“Thank you,” she says. “For... last time, too. What they would have done to us...”

“Yeah,” Mike says, and his hand moves towards his face for a second before falling away. “Place is going to blow in a few minutes, you need to leave.”

“Blow?” she says. “Aren't you coming? Are you going to be okay?”

“I'm pretty tough,” he says. “And I've got a buddy, he's even crazier than I am.”

The man in the mask, she thinks.

“You gotta go now,” Mike says, laying his hand to her shoulder. “You going to be able to move fast enough with him?”

The rat-a-tat-tat of gun fire interrupts their conversation. Mike turns towards the source of the noise.

“We'll be fine,” Jane says.

Mike nods and takes off in the opposite direction. “Four minutes,” he yells.

She pulls Bruce firmer into her grip and starts hauling him away. It's too slow, Bruce is so floppy and his feet keep catching on the floor; the corridors are long, she's never going to make it in under four minutes. Who knows how wide the blast radius is going to be. Who knows what's outside this building and where she's going to go from there.

“Bruce, come on,” she pleads. “It would be really great if you could wake up now.”

Bruce mumbles something but isn't any closer to being conscious. Jane stands there with Bruce draped across her, gun fire behind them, less than four minutes until the building's going to blow up. After all of this, they can't just get blown to pieces. She thinks of a video she watched months ago while she was absently clicking around youtube – a woman carrying a guy in a fireman's lift. She wondered if she'd be able to do it, but didn't think she'd ever have reason to test it out.

Well, here's a reason. She slides her arm out from around his shoulders and puts both arms under his armpits to hold him up before ducking down a little to drape him over her back. The idea that she's doing this is incredible, yesterday her back probably would have snapped, fifteen minutes ago she couldn't feel her feet. She kicks his legs apart and takes hold of one of his arms, dragging him up over her shoulders, locking an arm around his leg, the other holding his wrist. It feels oddly swollen and when she glances at it it's tinged red. She slides her grip up and puts it out of her mind.

She steadies herself, making sure she's got a good grip on Bruce, then starts to run, her woefully inadequate tennis shoes slapping against her feet. She runs as fast as she can, which is damn fast now. Running always used to be her least favourite thing to do at school; she had such a short stride that she could never keep up with the taller kids, no matter how hard she tried. Now it's like she's partially floating, she's going so fast. She tears around corners, slamming doors open with her shoulders. 

She slams through the final door and finds herself abruptly plunged into darkness. She looks up at the night sky; the stars are bright, Orion looking down on her.

How long have they been here? And _where_ are they?

She looks around where she's standing – it's a courtyard, buildings on all four sides. There are a couple of gaps between the buildings that seem like they might lead away, maybe to a road. She can see everything alarmingly well, considering how dark it is.

She hears the jet before she sees it, she feels the vibrations in her feet, smells the exhaust fumes seconds before it roars overheard and cleanly lands a few feet away. She quickly drops Bruce out of the lift, holding him upright like before, ready to let go and fight, if she needs to.

A woman jumps out of the jet, dressed in black, her hair pulled up into a ponytail. “Jane Foster?” she shouts.

Jane wishes she had her pipe. “Who are you?”

“SHIELD,” the woman calls back, walking over to her. Another woman gets out of the jet, blonde hair, gun strapped to her thigh.

Jane grips Bruce tighter. “There isn't a SHIELD any more.”

“Yeah, well,” the first woman says. She's pretty young, Jane can tell now. “It's a secret.”

The first explosion from inside the building rocks the ground beneath them. Jane stumbles, as does the blonde, but the young woman isn't thrown at all.

“How do I know you aren't just more HYDRA agents?” Jane says, backing up a step as the woman keeps getting closer.

“Because we aren't?” the woman says.

“Hurry up, we haven't got time to chat,” the blonde shouts from the jet.

“He doesn't look so good,” the woman says, nodding to Bruce, who's mumbling non-stop now, sagged in Jane's grip. “This place is going to blow up with or without you. Better it be without, right?”

There's another explosion, closer; Jane looks to the sound, then swallows. Even as fast as she is now, she doubts she could clear the area in time.

“Okay,” she says, “okay.” She starts dragging Bruce to the jet – if they really are SHIELD, and even if they're not, she doesn't want them knowing about her recent enhancement.

“Need help with him?” the blonde asks.

“No, I'm-- fine,” Jane says, feigning difficulty as she reaches the door. 

The blonde does help then, without asking, jumping into the jet and pulling Bruce up onto the seats. Jane climbs in next to him, sticking close, making sure they don't try to inject him with anything. There are two more women in the jet, the pilot up front, and a nervous looking young woman with brown hair. Moments later, the doors are slammed shut and the pilot starts taking them up again. Below there's a series of explosions, going off like fire crackers, several sections of the roofs caving in. Jane leans over Bruce, rubbing his arm, and watches it burn. She smiles a little.

“So,” the first woman says, “uh, introductions, I guess? I'm Skye.”

Jane sits back and looks at them. “Hi,” she says carefully.

“This is Bobbi,” Skye continues, gesturing to the blonde. “Jemma,” the nervous woman, “and the pilot's May.”

“Okay,” Jane says. “So how do I know you're not HYDRA?”

Skye pulls a face. “We just saved you from going ka-blam all over the concrete down there.”

“And the guy I thought was keeping us safe turned out to be HYDRA all along,” Jane says.

“The FBI guy?” Skye says. “He wasn't, he was brainwashed. We've got him, we're trying to break through it right now without him cynaniding himself.”

Jane sucks on her teeth – it would be nice if that were true, but she can't just believe it. “Prove it.”

“Well...” Skye glances at Bobbi. “We can't really, right now.”

“Hey,” May says from up front. “I've got Hill on the line.”

“Hill?” Jane repeats.

“Oh, hey, right!” Skye says and reaches over to take the phone May hands her. “Maria Hill, you know her, right?”

Jane nods. She's met her a couple of times, after SHIELD collapsed and Maria came to work for Stark Industries. Skye holds up the phone, which is on video chat with Maria.

“Dr Foster,” she says, “we've been going crazy looking for you two. Are you okay?”

“Uh, yeah, we're...” She glances at the black marker lines on Bruce head. “We're okay.”

“Great, we'll see you back here soon. I guess we'll have some talking to do.”

“Okay,” Jane says.

Skye passes the phone back to May and clicks her tongue. “Now do you believe us?”

Jane tips her head to the side. “Yeah, okay.” She glances out of the window. “Where are we?”

“Scranton.”

“ _Scranton_? Jesus. What time is it?”

“Just after four am.”

She nods and rubs her face. She doesn't feel tired, but it does feel like everything piled up on top of her. Just imagining how Bruce is going to react when he's conscious gives her pangs of anxiety in her stomach. “How long until we're home?”

“Fifteen, twenty minutes.”

“Really?”

Skye shrugs. “We have good jets.”

“Can I...” Jemma, still looking nervous, starts to say, “can I look him over? I'm a doctor.”

Bruce's head is leant against Jane's shoulder and he's still mumbling.

“Okay,” Jane says. “Be careful.”

Jemma nods and snaps on a pair of gloves before reaching out to touch Bruce's face. As soon as her hands make contact, he starts to flail, fighting back weakly, his mumbling increasing. Jemma jumps back and Jane gets hold of Bruce's arms, holding them back. He really doesn't like that at first and bucks against her, throwing his head back. Out of the corner of her eye, Jane sees Bobbi remove her gun from its holster.

“Put that down,” Jane says sharply, a growl underlying her voice. Bobbi and Skye share a look, but Jane ignores it. “Bruce,” she murmurs, rubbing her hands up and down his arms. “It's okay, it's just me, it's Jane.” She lays one hand on his neck and squeezes very gently. “Everything's okay now, you're safe. We're safe now.”

All the fight goes out of him at that and he slumps back down into his seat. Jane looks at the three women carefully, noting that Bobbi holsters her gun again. “Okay,” she says to Jemma.

Jemma nods and smiles, though her gaze is nervous again, and begins gently prodding Bruce. She probes his face with her fingers, opens his mouth carefully and feels the teeth – there's blood streaked on both sets.

“I don't think the blood around his mouth is his,” she says, withdrawing her hand and pulling off her gloves in favour of new ones. “His left upper incisor is a little loose. It should tighten up again on its own.” She's all business now, not nervous at all. She pinches the bridge of his nose between her newly gloved fingers and moves it very slightly from side to side. “His nose is broken, he might have to have it realigned. We'll see.” She tips his head down so that his chin is resting again his chest and starts checking his head, running her fingertips along the pink scars of his surgery, then touching the black marker lines and crosses.

“They were going to perform brain surgery on him,” she says.

“Yeah,” Jane says. “What were they going to do to him?”

Jemma glances to the side, to Skye, who nods. “Remove the bullet,” Jemma says.

“Why?”

Jemma sighs and brushes hair away from her face with the back of her wrist. “From what we found out, they think that the way the bullet is placed is what's preventing Dr Banner from... transforming.”

“How do you know that he can't Hulk out any more?” Jane says.

Skye shrugs apologetically. “Spies. Sorry.”

“In its place, they were going to put a chip that would let them... control the change.”

“God,” Jane says roughly, and runs her hands through her hair – or tries to, at least. Her hair feels hard and crunchy, matted at the back with blood and filth. “That's what they were planning to do months ago, isn't it?”

“We're pretty sure, yeah,” Skye says. “You were just collateral damage.”

“Wasn't I just,” Jane murmurs.

“I should check you over too,” Jemma says, reaching to pull off the second pair of gloves.

“No,” Jane says. “I'm fine. He did something to his hand as well, the left one.”

Jemma picks up his hand and looks at it. His thumb is pretty clearly swollen, all the way down to the base of his hand. Jemma hums to herself for a moment. “He's dislocated his thumb.” She wraps her hand around his and pushes until there's an audible pop. Bruce stirs but doesn't wake up. “It's easier to do to the unconscious, the anticipation is the worst. I'll put a splint on it later to keep it immobile for a while. He should have an x-ray soon, just to be safe.”

“That's it?” Jane says.

“For now,” Jemma says, pulling off her gloves. “We can do a full check-up when things have settled down a little.”

Jane wraps her arm around Bruce and pulls him against her again. “Okay, thanks.” She feels bone-deep tired yet at the same time not tired at all. She's used to being straight-up tired, the other part is very peculiar. “What part of England are you from?”

Jemma smiles. “Devon.”

“That's nice, I used to go on holidays to Torquay with my mom. I went to secondary school in Blackheath.”

“I know, St Saviour's. You're quite famous at SHIELD Academy. Both of you are.”

Jane nods. “That's... creepy. Do you know where Bruce went to high school as well?”

“Belmont High,” Jemma says and blushes. “I have a good memory, sorry.”

Jane smiles and pulls Bruce in closer. His head tips against her shoulder. “It's okay.”

“Hey, I know you probably don't want to talk about it, but...” Skye starts. 

“Yeah, that's fine,” Jane says. “Uh, what do you want to know?”

“Can you tell us what happened?”

“Sure. Uh... We were leaving the hospital when the FBI guy came up to us and told us we needed to come with him. I guess I'd seen him so many times that I trusted him. We followed him back to the hospital, I said I was going to call Tony, he said he'd been compromised. He threw my phone in the dumpster.”

Skye nods. “We found the phone.”

“Good, it wasn't cheap. He led us to an ambulance bay, there were just two paramedics hanging around. Well, they weren't paramedics. Bruce tried to jump him but that didn't work. I think that's how he broke his nose. They threw us into the ambulance and drugged us.”

“Would you recognise anyone if you saw them again?”

“Oh yeah,” Jane says, “but the two paramedics, they're dead. Some guy in a mask killed them. Handsome, though...”

“'Handsome'?”

“Yeah, this guy, he was in and out of my room. He had dark hair, high cheekbones, jaw, dead behind the eyes. He seemed kind of familiar.”

“Did you know him?”

She shakes her head. “He just... I'd seen his face before.” She closes her eyes and presses her fingertips to her eyelids. Where has she seen him before? What did she do this morning-- yesterday morning? She took pills, had a yoghurt, watched TV. The TV... “There was something on the news this morning. Uh, it was a... special report. She taps her fingers on her leg. “It was... that guy, the senator, the one that died...”

“Ward,” Skye says.

“That's the one.”

Skye nods, face blank, and gets a phone out of her pocket. She touches the screen a few times before turning the phone towards Jane. “Is this the guy?”

She barely has to look at the picture on the screen to know. There's no doubt. “Yeah, that's him.”

“Damn it,” Bobbi mutters.

“This is Grant Ward,” Skye says, “the senator's brother.”

“Great,” Jane says.

“Do you know what happened to him?”

Jane shrugs. “Last I saw him, he was unconscious and bleeding on the floor.” She decides not to tell them she was the one who put him there. “The building blew up not too long after that, so...”

“Yeah, who did that?”

“He said his name was Mike.”

Skye and Jemma both smile.

“You know him?”

“We do, yeah. I'm glad to hear that he's still around, we haven't heard from him in a while.”

“We're coming up to Stark Tower,” May calls, “just another couple of minutes.”

Jane nods and tips her head back against the seat. Bruce mumbles something and she rubs his shoulder absently.

“Please identify yourself or your aircraft will be disabled,” JARVIS's voice says over the intercom. Something starts beeping and May says something about thrusters disengaging.

“That sounds not too good,” Jemma says softly.

Jane settles Bruce back against the seat and leans forward. “JARVIS,” she says, “it's us. Jane and Bruce.”

There's a short pause, she guesses as JARVIS runs voice recognition protocols. Then he says, “it is good to have you both home, Dr Foster. You may now land.”

May mutters something under her breath and the jet starts to shudder as it begins to land. Jane leans over and looks out the window. Tony is on the balcony of the penthouse in his suit, his hands raised towards the jet. The jet thumps down to the ground and Skye opens the door and jumps out.

“Stop,” Tony calls, in his modulated voice. “Where are they?”

Jane takes a breath, pushes Bruce back again, and clambers out of the jet. “It's okay, Tony,” she calls, as she hits the ground.

The suit's faceplate retracts and... it's Pepper. “Oh, thank God!” she says, and rushes over to hug Jane, seemingly forgetting the layer of metal between them. Jane and Pepper barely know each other.

“Uh... ow,” Jane murmurs, though it doesn't actually hurt – she could shove Pepper clean across this roof, if she was inclined to.

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” Pepper says and steps back. “We've been going out of our minds looking for you, Tony, Rhodey, Steve, and Sam are on their way back now. Clint and Natasha said they had something to take care of. God, you're covered in blood.”

Jane smiles a little. “You ain't seen nothing yet.” She turns back to the jet and leans in to help Skye get Bruce out of the jet. Pepper steps forward to help and Jane has to forcibly step away and let her. She'll tell everyone about what she did once SHIELD are no longer in the picture.

“Good God,” Pepper murmurs as they get Bruce out. 

He's sick as soon as the early morning air hits him, some on the concrete, some down his shirt. Jane rushes forward again and holds his shoulders. He seems to be slightly more conscious, moving in ways other than flopping to the side.

“Bruce?” she says.

He moans and throws up again. It's only bile, though, there's nothing else left in him.

“It's okay,” she says, “you're okay.” On instinct she lifts her hand to stroke his hair; God, that's going to take some getting used to.

“Let's get him inside,” Pepper says.

Jane nods and lays a hand on Bruce's chest. He groans and gurgles a little, but doesn't throw up a third time, and Skye comes around the other side to help walk him into the penthouse – Jane holds her tongue – and Pepper directs them to get him to the couch. Jane says she should cover it with something first, but Pepper shakes her head.

“I really don't care about that now.”

Jane smiles a little and nods. “Thanks.”

Pepper gets the suit off, then goes to fetch a tub of water to wash Bruce's face. Bruce is wavering in and out of consciousness, breathing hard, opening and closing his eyes, though Jane's pretty sure he's not seeing her, or anything else. Jane sits on the floor beside him and strokes his hand.

Pepper comes back with the tub and a wash cloth and Jane takes it gratefully. 

“You should wear gloves,” Jemma says.

Jane shakes her head, putting her hand into the warm water. “It's fine.” 

“No, you really should,” she repeats, pulling a pair of surgical gloves from her bag.

Jane sighs and holds out her hand. “Okay, you're right.” Jemma hands them over and Jane starts to pull them on when there are a couple of thumps out on the deck.

“They're back,” Pepper says, and sure enough a moment later Tony, Rhodey, Sam, and ruffled looking Steve burst into the penthouse.

“They're here? Where-- _Jesus_ ,” Tony finishes, staring at them. Jane wets the wash cloth and lifts it to his face as Tony walks over, eyes growing wider and wider. “Holy shit, what happened?”

“A lot,” Jane says. She wipes the flannel over Bruce's mouth and it comes away red and brown immediately.

“Who are all these other people? Whose jet is on my balcony?” Tony asks. 

“SHIELD,” Pepper replies.

“ _What?_ ” Tony and Steve say in unison.

Jane tunes them out and goes back to cleaning Bruce's face. He's fallen into a fitful sleep now, twitching every few minutes. They're left alone for a good ten minutes, aside from Rhodey quietly asking if she's okay – she smiles a yes – before Jemma takes over to splint Bruce's nose and hand and check him over again.

“Shit,” Tony says, “when was the last time he took his medication?”

Jane looks up at him and frowns. It's been over thirty hours since he had his medication last. “He's missed a dose,” she says.

“Where are they?”

“They're...” In her bag, which is likely long gone by now. “They're gone. I had them on me...”

“Shit,” Tony repeats.

“I can write out a prescription,” Jemma says, looking up from her work. “You can fill it at a twenty four hour pharmacy.”

“Good idea, I'll go,” Tony says.

“No, I'll go,” Pepper says. “I could use the air.”

Tony purses his lips. “I don't know, I don't think you should be out alone, any of us should.”

“I'll go too,” Steve says, “me and Ms Potts can get the prescription, you guys can stay with Bruce and Jane.”

“We'll be fine,” Pepper says when Tony's expression doesn't clear. “Don't worry.”

Tony laughs a little. “I think I've been set to the permanent worry channel, these days.”

He lets them go, though, and comes over to the couch as Jemma applies butterfly strips to the cut on Bruce's forehead. “I realigned Dr Banner's nose, it should heal correctly. He'll have black eyes for a while, though. His ribs are bruised, as well, but I don't think they're broken.”

“Okay,” Jane says.

“I should really look you over, as well,” she continues.

Jane rubs at her eye. “I'm fine, really. They just manhandled me a little, nothing broken, promise.”

Jemma doesn't look convinced. “All right... Well, I'll leave you guys alone for a bit.”

“Thanks,” Jane says. 

The rest of SHIELD are talking to Rhodey and Sam and Jemma gets up to join them. Tony sits down in her place on the floor.

“How are you doing?” he asks Jane.

“Better than a couple of hours ago.”

“Yeah. How's the leg?” He nods to the way she's sitting cross-legged, something she hasn't been able to do in a year. Thankfully, no one but Bruce knew the extent of how bad it got, unless JARVIS has been telling tales, so the crossed legs don't immediately tell him that something's different.

“It's okay. It's been... getting better recently.”

“That's good,” Tony says absently, looking back over at Bruce. “Jesus, what happened to you guys? How did you get away?”

“Remember the guy that saved us last time? It was him and another guy in a mask.” She lifts her hand to her mouth to demonstrate. Tony's brow twitches but he doesn't say anything. “They'd been watching us, I guess.”

“I'm so sorry we didn't find you,” Tony says. “JARVIS didn't alert us that you hadn't come home until ten pm.”

“Don't worry, it's fine,” she says.

“It's not, though, is it?” He look over at Bruce. “God, he looks like he did in the hospital.”

“Except this time he isn't in a coma.”

One corner of Tony's mouth tips up. “That's true, yeah. Do you think he's going to be okay?”

She looks at Bruce; his breathing has slowed now, his sleep deeper. Maybe hearing their voices has helped. “I don't know. I hope so.”

Steve and Pepper come back with the new prescription twenty minutes later and they're able to wake Bruce up enough to get him to take the pill. Jane decides it's time to get him down to their apartment after that, while he can walk a little. Tony helps her with him and tries to insist that he should stay and sleep on the couch for a while but she, as kindly as she can, tells him to get out.

She has to strip Bruce of his shirt – thankfully a button down and not a t-shirt – and throw it out. It's in a terrible state and she doesn't even want to try to get all that blood out. On closer inspection of his jeans, she strips those too, along with his boxers – it seems that he may have... wet himself at some point. She redresses him in a clean pair of boxers but leaves him shirtless. Bruce slips in and out of consciousness while she does all this, mumbling plaintively. She pulls off her sweater and leggings and leaves them on the floor, then gets into bed in just her underpants. She pulls all the blankets over them and plasters herself against his side. Bruce settles down, breath evening out, and she tucks her nose against his collarbone, resting her hand on his chest.

She doesn't sleep for long, but when she wakes up at nine, it feels like she's slept for eight hours. She pulls away from Bruce slowly, though he's completely down for the count and doesn't stir, and turns to sit on the edge of the bed. There's a moment where she braces herself against the pain that doesn't come before her feet hit the floor. She stands up so easily that she almost bounces and walks into the bathroom.

The sight of herself in the mirror is shocking. Her hair is a disgusting, knotted mess hanging limply around her shoulders and her face has dirt smeared along one side, but at the same time... she looks _healthy_. Her skin seems to be several shades darker, its sallowness gone, the bags under her eyes have disappeared, the lines around her mouth have gone. When she reaches for her toothbrush she watches the way her bicep flexes. Her arms are still as skinny as anything, but her muscles are clearly outlined in a way that they never have been before. It's the same with her thighs and although all her scars are still present and accounted for, she doesn't feel half as bad looking down at them as she used to.

God, she hopes this doesn't wear off.

Once she's done her teeth, she eyes her hair in the mirror. It's going to take forever to wash: rinse, shampoo, rinse, shampoo again, condition, pick hunks of hair out of the drain thing, condition again, pick more hunks of hair out of the drain thing, five minutes of brushing, pull hair out of the brush, blow dry. It's going to be twenty minutes, minimum, just to get her hair clean. It feels like she has so much to do, so much energy, she hasn't got the time to waste.

She opens the bathroom cabinet and looks inside. Among the bottles of pills and cough medicine is a pair of scissors. She uses them to trim her eyebrows, mostly; so does Bruce. She picks them up and closes the cabinet door again. She hasn't had a haircut in months.

She gathers all her hair in one hand, twisting it a couple of times until it tugs at her scalp. She thinks of Handsome dragging her by her hair as she makes the first cut. It takes a few minutes to get through it all, her hair keeps getting caught, the blades splaying apart, but she gets there eventually and dumps the hair in the sink. Twenty five inches of bloody, matted hair.

She looks up at herself again. She used to wear her hair like this as a child, just under the ears. It was so convenient, she didn't need to brush it or braid it or wait forever for it to dry. She thinks she started growing it out for of a boy. All her boyfriends liked her hair, Thor liked it, Bruce likes it.

She's not so sure she ever liked it.

She hops in the shower after and scrubs herself down, every inch. She rubs soap everywhere, scratches her nails into her scalp until the water goes from brown to clear, until her fingertips turn pruney.

When she gets out, she dresses in a tank top and sleep shorts. She hasn't worn anything like that in months and when she stretches out in front of the full length mirror in bedroom, she marvels at the way her thigh muscles tense and bulge. Bruce is still asleep in the bed a few feet away, snoring even louder than normal; the broken nose is going to prove interesting.

She has a bowl of cereal, standing up in the kitchen, just for the novelty of standing, then two slices of toast, then some orange juice, a yoghurt, two waffles, and a breakfast bar. She's hungry for the first time in _months_ , without even a hint of nausea. It's like a miracle.

After breakfast, she's full of energy in a way that not even the most caffeinated beverage could make her. She starts to clean; she does the dishes, including the ones that were left from the previous morning, picks every single thing up from the floor and dumps it on the couch for sorting, _actually_ sorts through it all, collects up all their laundry and throws it in the washing machine, gets all the trash and tosses it down the garbage shoot, and refolds all the clothes in the chest of drawers. She wants to vacuum but doesn't want to risk waking Bruce up.

She finishes the folding and walks over to the bed to look at him. His lips are pale and chapped, from dehydration, she assumes, the same as in the hospital, and bruises at starting form underneath both eyes. There's no way around it, he looks like hell.

“Dr Foster,” JARVIS says softly, “your mother is here.”

“My mother?” Jane repeats.

“She arrived from London half an hour. A driver picked her up.”

“Jesus,” Jane mutters. “Uh, yeah, let her up.”

She goes back out to the living room and paces, waiting for her mom to get to the door. What's Jane going to tell her about her leg? Is she going to cry? Jane doesn't think she can deal with someone crying right. What's she going to say about her _hair_?

There's an insistent knock at the door, and Jane swallows before reaching to open it.

“Jane, are you okay? Oh my God, I couldn't get a flight-- the weather-- got grounded-- layover--” Her mother stammers out, then hugs her fiercely for a second before jumping back. “Did I hurt you? Are you okay?”

Jane smiles and pushes a hand through her hair; it doesn't go very far, she'll have to get used to that. “I'm okay, I really am.”

“What happened to you?” Mom looks her up and down. “Where's your cane? What did you do to your hair?”

“That's a lot of questions,” Jane says, and smiles a little. “And there are answers, but you look exhausted.”

“I haven't slept in _days_ ,” Mom says, pressing a hand to her forehead.

“Yeah, so why don't you get some sleep? The guest room is still made up.”

Mom takes her hands and grips them. “What did they do to you, Janey?”

Jane smiles briefly. “I'll tell you but I... I don't want to talk about it now.”

Mom looks like she's ready to argue more but she doesn't. “Okay. All I need is to see that you're okay. How's Bruce?”

“He's...” She looks away and shrugs. “We'll see.”

Mom squeezes her arm. “He'll be okay.”

Jane smiles quickly. “I hope so.”

-

There's a pressure on top of him, keeping him down. It's not like being held down, though, it's nice. It's safe. He stays like that for a long time, safe; it's a long time before he opens his eyes again.

He knows where he is, he's at home, he's in bed. He's in his and Jane's bed. 

But where's he been? The last he remembers... someone was trying to drown him? That doesn't sound quite right...

He sits up slowly and raises his hand to run through his hair. A flash of white stops him. He blinks and looks at his hand. There's a bandage wrapped around his wrist and thumb, keeping his thumb immobile. He frowns at it, then lifts his other hand, thankfully unbandaged, to his hair. Only there's none there. He runs his hand over his head and it's smooth except for a few patches.

“Wha...?” he mumbles.

He has to get out of bed, even though it's warm and nice and safe. He pushes himself off to one side and gets his feet on the floor. Getting up feels a lot like the time he didn't take his medication, blurring and confusing. It doesn't help that his glasses aren't on the night stand where he normally keeps them.

He stumbles into the bathroom and is confronted with... something in the sink. It looks like a bloody, dead animal. He squints and pokes at it for a minute.

Then he looks up.

“Oh,” he gets out, mouth falling open. There's a strip across his nose, he tries to peel it off but it hurts so bad that his eyes begin to water. His eyes that are both black. He has a row of butterfly strips stuck to a cut on his forehead. He has bruises on his chest.

And he doesn't have any fucking hair.

He tips his head down a little and sees black lines and crosses. He touches them gingerly, but they don't hurt, it's the only part of him that doesn't.

“Bruce?” Jane says.

He turns around slowly. Something seems different about Jane but then she's moving towards him in a blur, hugging him, and he's hugging back, holding on with a desperation he's not totally sure why he's feeling. When Jane starts to pull away, he reluctantly loosens his grip, but she only goes far enough to kiss him, mashing their mouths together. She peppers his face with kisses then hugs him tightly again. She seems strong...

When they finally pull away from each other, Jane cups his face in her hands. 

“How are you feeling?”

“Mm... 'kay. Uh, con—fused. Tired.” He looks at her, her hair, which stops just below her ears. “Where's... your hair?”

“Oh...” She smiles a little, looking embarrassed. “It's in there.” She gestured to the sink and he looks back at it.

“That's... hair?” he murmurs. “Why?”

“Just wanted a change. I know you liked it long, but...”

He looks back at her and shrugs. “Like this too. Where's... my hair?”

She glances down and purses her lips. “It's a... there's a lot to talk about... Are you hungry? Thirsty?”

His stomach growls at the thought of food. “Yes.”

She smiles and takes his hand. “Come on, I'll make you breakfast.”

Bruce feels more than a little dazed as she leaves him on the couch, calling out 'toast or waffles?'. He's pretty sure he just replies with 'yes' again, but Jane doesn't ask anything else. He sits on the couch looking around the room carefully; he can't see very well but the place seems tidy. Nothing's where it normally is, or is normally dropped.

Jane comes back with a plate piled with food and a large glass of water. “Toast _and_ waffles!” she says with a smile. “If you don't want it all, I'll have it. Here, drink this.”

He takes the glass and starts drinking – he doesn't realise how thirsty he is until the water hits his throat. He drains the entire glass and gasps a little as he wipes his mouth.

“More?” Jane says.

“Uh, please,” he says. She takes the glass back and kisses him on the cheek, then gives him the plate and gets up, practically bouncing. He frowns after her for a second, then smells the food and starts eating. He drains the second glass too, and half of the third before Jane is able to settle down on the couch. He keeps eating, his attention split between his body finally kicking to life, demanding food and water, and Jane.

Finally it clicks. “Your leg.”

Her happy face grows a little pensive. She glances to the side and gnaws on her lip for a moment. “We have to talk, but... you should have a shower first. Do your teeth. You know...”

“Jane...”

She smiles and takes the empty plate from him. “It's good, it's all good, don't worry. But you smell, so you should wash up.”

He can't argue with that, much as he'd like to. He gets up slowly and Jane gets up fast, without any struggle. “Be careful doing your teeth, your left front tooth is loose.”

It is? He runs his tongue along his teeth, and sure enough one moves more than it should. In his haste to eat, he hadn't noticed. 

Jane helps him get to the bathroom without running into any walls. He brushes his teeth gently and uses the green mouthwash, then turns the shower up as hot as he can stand and slips and slides for a few minutes before giving in and sitting down on the seat, holding his splinted thumb away from the spray. As he scrubs himself down he finds more and more cuts and bruises, on his arms and his legs and his chest. His ribs feel sore, although not to the point of being broken, he thinks.

He starts to remember things, being kicked in the face and the stomach outside the hospital. Jane was having a scan to see if she had a herniated disc. How is she moving around like she is now? When water from the shower gets in his mouth he remembers the drowning again, the lack of air, the pain of water filling his nose, the rattle of water in his ears. He sits back.

Jane is practically hopping from foot to foot in the bedroom when he comes back out. She helps him get dressed and leads him back out into the living room. He sits down on the couch and she sits beside him, clasping her hands together and chewing on her lip.

“Jane...” he murmurs. His hands are beginning to twitch.

“What do you remember?”

“I remember... the hospital. Mm, and the guy, the... He made us go...” He closes his eyes for a moment. The guy came and made them follow him. “You tried to phone... Tony. He threw your phone... He...” Bruce presses his hand to his neck – it hurts. “He... tazed me?”

Jane nods.

“He hit my face and... stomach and... I don't re—member much after that.”

“Okay,” Jane says, and pushes her hair back from her face before taking his hands. “They drugged us and took us to Scranton, of all places. We were separated, so I don't know what they did to you, exactly, but they were going to... take the bullet out.”

“Take...?” Bruce murmurs.

“They thought that... it would make you be able to Hulk out again.”

He frowns. The bullet's been in there all along, is that why...? The thought of it throws up too many possibilities. He shakes his head and rubs at his face. “What happened... you?”

“They didn't do much to me, just left me in a room strapped to a chair, taunted me a little. That was until... Do you remember me telling you about the guy that saved us?”

Bruce nods. The guy killed the men that attacked them, and took Bruce and Jane to the hospital in a helicopter.

“Well, him and another guy arrived. They fought with the HYDRA agents and it was chaos. We got shoved into the same room. You were unconscious, I... couldn't feel my feet.” She squeezes his hands. “Bruce, we were going to die, or worse.”

Bruce stomach turns; he's starting to feel very, very scared. “What... hap—pened?”

Jane's eyes get big and nervous. “You were strapped down to a gurney. We were locked in. I had to...”

His breath starts to come faster. “What did you do?”

She lifts her hand to the cut of his forehead. “I remembered what you told me about that guy who drank the soda...”

He jumps up off the couch, wrenching his hands away from hers. “No,” he says. “No, no, no.”

She gets up and follows him as he backs away from the couch. “I had to, Bruce. You said it wore off for that guy. Mike was going to blow up the whole building, we might have gone with it. I don't regret what I did.”

“No,” he says, louder. “You can't, it's, I--” His brain won't cooperate from its depth of panic. His heart is slamming in his chest, he can't take more than a shallow breath, his head starts to spin.

“Bruce,” Jane says gently, reaching out again and taking his hands. Her grip is so strong now, he can't pull away from it. “Mom's asleep in the guestroom.”

He screws up his face. Since when has her mom been here?

“I feel really good,” Jane continues, and tugs at him, pulling him in. “Bruce, I feel _really_ good.”

“No, no, you can't-- it'll, it'll...”

“I ate, Bruce, I ate loads of food and I didn't feel sick. I can walk, I can bend over, I can touch my toes. It's good, it's so good, Bruce,” she says, staring at him fiercely.

He keeps shaking his head. He can't think straight, he needs a valium, but he can't, he needs... he needs to make sure she's okay. If it didn't get into her bloodstream, if she only ingested it... “Blood,” he says. “I need... to test it, yours.”

“Okay,” she says, “okay, but not right now. You need to rest more, you can barely stand up right now.”

“No, now. Now, has to be, has to be...”

Her eyebrows scrunch together worriedly. “Okay, okay, we'll do it now. JARVIS, which lab is empty?”

“All of them, Dr Foster. Sir has sent all staff aside from security home until further notice.”

“Okay, let me put some leggings on...”S he leans up and kisses Bruce on the cheek. “It's okay, all right?”

It's not okay. He watches her go into the bedroom for a few minutes and come back out in black leggings, and then they leave the apartment for one of the labs. Jane's right that he's having trouble standing; he feels dizzy and sick and confused, ad he's not sure how much of that is down to the heavy sedation Jane says he was under and how much of it is the thought that Jane might be cursed the same way he is, now.

The first thing he has to do is take her blood but with the cast on his thumb and the way his hands are shaking, he can barely keep a hold on the needle.

“Here, I'll do it,” Jane says. 

“Mm, I can...”

“Come on, I've seen my mom do it, I know what to do.”

He takes a breath and hands her the needle. She does know what to do and has no trouble drawing the blood. “There you go,” she says, handing it over carefully.

His hands are still shaking, but he manages to take the vial and put it in the centrifuge for separating. In its inert state, the gamma radiation is found in the white blood cells, literally becoming part of the immune system. Once the blood components are separated, he'll be able to look at it under the microscope and tell.

“Bruce,” she says, tugging him back towards her. “Don't worry, okay?”

She puts her hands on his arms and looks up at him. “Bruce?”

“Mm,” he murmurs, and looks away. “I should... check you.”

“Okay,” she says, smiling a little. “I'll sit on the counter, okay?”

He nods and she hopes up on the counter like it's nothing. His hands are still quivering, though less than before, and he presses them to either side of her neck.

“Oh,” she says, and smiles. “Your hands are cold.”

“Sorry,” he mumbles. Her lymph glands feel fine, as does her thyroid. All of his swelled up hugely immediately after the dose. He threw up, got feverish, head pounded so hard it felt like his brain was going to liquefy. He lost most of his hair for the first few weeks, before his immune started to rebuild itself. Jane has none of those symptoms; she looks happy and sunny and not sick at all.

He gets a flashlight out of the drawer and checks her eyes. She has a lot of broken blood vessels, especially around her irises; he had that too, although much worse. It looked like his eyes were bleeding.

“So?” Jane says.

“You're fine.” 

The centrifuge finishes its spin and Bruce turns to look at it. He takes a breath and takes out the vial. He separates the white blood cells from the rest and puts a drop on a glass slide. His hands starts to flutter again as he lowers his face to microscope.

“It's okay,” Jane says softly.

He puts his eye to the microscope and starts to adjust the focus. It gets clearer and clearer until... His fingers jerk reflexively, knocking the focus off, but he's already seen it.

“Bruce?”

“Y-your... cells are.... de—formed,” he manages.

“And that means that...”

“It's in blood... stream.”

She looks thoughtful for a second. “I did... bite my tongue just before...”

He nods.

“So, this means it won't wear off?”

He nods again, looking at the microscope. “Yeah, but I... I can do... I can fix...I tried, I tried things to stop Hulk and some, they didn't... on me, but on you--”

“Bruce.”

“--on you, early, they might, they could--”

“Bruce.”

“--could _work_. You got much less, lower--”

“ _Bruce_ ,” Jane says, and hops off the counter. She drops her hands on his shoulders and gives him a little shake. “Bruce, I don't want to be 'fixed', I already _am_.”

“It's a curse,” he says.

“Not for me. I'm strong, I'm happy, I'm _healthy_. Do you know what happened after I got that tiny bit of blood in my bloodstream? I ran. I carried _you_ out of that building.” She slides her hands up to his neck and gives him a gentle tug. “I need you to understand, because no one else will.”

“It's a curse,” he repeats quietly.

“No, it isn't,” she says.

He presses his lips together and nods. She isn't him, maybe it doesn't have to be like it is for him...

She tugs him in again and wraps her arms around him; he can feel how strong she is now, how her arms can pin him in and hold him in place, if she wanted to. She could hold him down, now.

But she doesn't. She steps back and looks at him again, a small smile on her face. “So, if I can walk now, how come I still have all my scars?”

“It... it heals, it should heal open wounds... not old ones.”

“Okay,” she says, “so I guess I won't regrow my hip then? Or...” She puts her hand over stomach. “Right?”

“Mm... shouldn't,” he murmurs. He didn't have any missing organs to regrow when he changed for the first time. It seems unlikely, since the 'upside' to Hulk was that he healed Bruce's injuries; if something had already healed on its own, then it would leave it be. Bruce still has all the same scars he's had since childhood.

But then obviously Jane isn't exactly like him, she might be more like Steve. Steve might have regrown organs, his prior medical records were fairly spotty. Bruce wouldn't be surprised if he'd had his appendix removed.

“You can, mm, with an ultra—sound...”

“Yeah, but where would I get one done? I can hardly ask my doctor to just quickly check if my uterus is still gone.”

“If I may, Doctors,” JARVIS says, “there is an ultrasound machine in the medical laboratory on the fifty ninth floor.”

“Huh,” Jane says. “It really is the land of plenty. Do you know how to work an ultrasound machine, Bruce?”

“Uh... I've used one...” There was a lady in India; she was pregnant, for a time, but in the end he couldn't help her.

“Okay, come on, then.”

Jane leads him back to the elevator and down into the medical lab. Jane retrieves the gel from the cupboard, bending down with ease, and hops onto the bed. “Do you want me to put the gel on?”

“I can do it,” he mumbles, and takes the gel from her. She pulls her t-shirt up and he squeezes the gel onto the stomach and switches the machine on. He spreads the gel around with the wand and looks at the screen.

“Is it a boy?” Jane says, then clears her throat when he looks back at her and blinks. “Sorry, bad joke.”

He looks back at the screen. He moves the wand around for a minute, getting as clear a picture as he can before he pulls the wand away.

“You don't-- it didn't,” he mumbles.

“Grow back?” Jane says, smiling a little. She sits up and starts wiping the gel off her stomach. “Good, I just got done with back and leg pain, I don't need seven day gushers again.”

“Yeah,” Bruce murmurs.

Jane looks up at him and grins. “Sorry, that was gross.” She gets off the bed and comes chest to chest with him. “You know, I'm kinda... horny.” She closes her fingers around the bottom of his t-shirt and raises her eyebrows. “I think we can probably have a lot more fun than last time we tried it out.”

“Mm,” Bruce mumbles. His stomach gurgles.

Jane's smile drops a little. “Maybe now's not a great time, though, huh? We should wait until you're less achy.”

He nods and looks away.

“You want to go back upstairs?”

“Yeah,” he says softly. Jane smiles again, although the light in her eyes has dimmed. Bruce's stomach gurgles again. 

He switches the ultrasound machine off and follows Jane back to the elevator, slumping against the wall inside. He's so tired, from the obvious and from Jane's revelation, he wants to just slide down the wall and sit on the floor of the elevator for a while. He settles on rubbing his eyes instead, which hurts like hell.

“Ugh,” he groans, and pinches the bridge of his nose. That's even worse.

Jane hums sympathetically. “Don't prod it too much, Jemma realigned it.”

“Jemma?”

The elevator doors open again and he stumbles out after Jane, eyes watering.

“She was one of the SHIELD agents who picked us up.”

“SHIELD?” 

“Uh, yeah... That's something else I've got to tell you about.”

Bruce looks at her for second, then nods and keeps following her to the door. He's too tired to worry about SHIELD right now. She opens the door and ushers him in first as her mother calls out to her. He turns and looks at Liz as she gets up from the couch. She stops dead in her tracks.

“Oh, Bruce,” she says, sounding so much like Jane.

Jane closes the door behind them and puts her hand on his back. “Maybe you should go back to bed now.”

“Mm,” he murmurs.

“Jane, we still need to talk about things,” Liz says.

“I know, Mom,” Jane says, and runs her fingers through her hair. She looks up at Bruce and sighs. “Maybe I should just tell everyone at the same time.”

He shrugs.

“JARVIS,” Jane calls, “are the SHIELD agents still here?”

“No, Dr Foster, they left a few hours after Dr Banner and yourself retired to bed.”

“Good. Could you ask Tony if maybe we could get everyone together in the penthouse? Everyone not connected with SHIELD, at least...”

“Of course,” JARVIS says.

“Jane, what's going on?” Liz says. Bruce stays quiet, doing his best to just stay on his feet.

“Just hang on, okay?”

“Mr Stark would be happy to host a get-together,” JARVIS comes back with. “Most of 'everyone' is already in the penthouse.”

Jane nods. “Great, thanks, JARVIS. We'll be up in a minute.”

“Very good, Dr Foster.”

“Bruce, why don't you go back to bed?”

He stares at her for a moment, then shakes his head. “I'm come,” he mumbles. That doesn't sound right...

Jane frowns but doesn't argue. “Well, okay... Let's just get it over with, then.”

Liz keeps questioning her as they turn back around and go to the elevator, but Bruce mostly tunes it out. The world is so blurry around him, it's all he can do to focus. Tony is standing outside the elevator doors when they open, and Jane wraps her arm around Bruce's waist to help him out.

“Hey, love the hair, how's everything going, you feeling okay?” Tony says, all in a rush, it seems to Bruce.

“We're okay,” Jane says, “I just need to talk to you guys about something.”

“Okay, great, uh...”

Someone moves behind Tony, catching Bruce's eye, blond and red and...

“Thor,” Jane says. Oh.

“Uh... yeah, he's been here for a few hours but I thought maybe you'd want some time to rest,” Tony says quickly.

“It's fine,” she says as Thor approaches them.

“I came as soon as I got word,” Thor says, in his deep, commanding voice, “but the danger had already passed. I'm glad that you are both safe.”

“Thanks,” Jane says. “It's... nice that you came.”

Thor nods. “You look... well, Jane.”

“Yeah, you really do,” Tony adds.

“That's kind of what I wanted to talk about. Can we sit down?”

“Yeah, yeah, come on,” Tony says, stepping back.

Bruce stumbles along with Jane, Thor at their back, his presence weighing heavy. Jane settles him down on the couch and sits down beside him. He's having trouble making out faces, but he thinks that along with Tony and Thor, Pepper, Steve, Sam, and even Rhodey are there.

“So, what was it you wanted to tell us?” Pepper asks.

“Yeah...” Jane says, clasping her hands in her lap. “I... Did Tony tell you guys about the men that saved us?”

“Yeah,” Sam says, “one of them was the same guy as before?”

“Yeah, well... when they broke in, it sent the agents, the HYDRA people, into chaos, and they locked me and Bruce in a room together.” She starts rubbing her hands together. “We were... I thought we were going to die. Bruce was unconscious, and I... I lied about what they did to me. They really hurt me, my back... I couldn't feel my feet by that time. I've been keeping how bad things have gotten quiet for months.”

“Jane,” Liz says.

“It's okay, Mom.” She's twisting her fingers together now, pulling and pushing at them; Bruce knows the tick well from his many years of doing it. He reaches over and puts his hand over hers. She looks at him and smiles. “So, I... ingested Bruce's blood,” she quickly. “And it worked and... I got the door open, and...” She takes a breath. “It's permanent.”

There's a flurry of talking that's too jumbled and confused for Bruce to follow, some of it sounding panicked, some less so. Tony wants to see just how strong she is and she gets up, her hands sliding out from under Bruce's. She easily shoves Tony across the room.

Bruce wavers in and out of consciousness, his vision greying out at the edges several times until it goes black altogether, and he sleeps for a while, his head tipped back against the couch. When he wakes again, Tony is sitting beside him.

“You sound like a train when you snore,” Tony says.

Bruce peers at him blearily for a second, then looks around the room. It's quiet now, dark outside, and everyone's dispersed around the room. Jane and Thor are standing near the kitchen, his head bent down towards hers as they talk. She touches his arm for second, smiling, then he leans in and hugs her.

It was nice while it lasted.

“Don't spin some crazy paranoid story in your head,” Tony says.

Bruce looks back at him. Tony pulls a face.

“You know what I'm talking about,” he says.

Jane comes back over and smiles down at Bruce. “Will you go back to bed now?”

He nods.

“Good. Can you get up?”

He opens his mouth to say, yes, of course he can, but then he's not so sure. His limbs feel leaden down, his brain heavy and his mouth even less able to form words than usual. He says something like, 'uh' and Jane leans down and puts her arms under his. She pulls him up and arranges his arm around her shoulders. He shuffles his feet in an approximation of walking, beyond embarrassment at this point. They're almost at the elevator when Steve hurries up to them.

“Can I just ask you something quick, Jane?”

“Uh, okay,” she says.

Steve is close enough that Bruce can make out his features. His face looks drawn and nervous. “What did the other guy look like? The one that didn't save you last time?”

“I don't know, he had a mask on.”

“Did it cover all of his face?”

Jane shakes her head. “Just his nose and mouth.”

“Did he have long hair?”

“He... did,” she says, and glances at Bruce. “Do you think that it might be...”

“Bucky,” Steve says. “Maybe, I don't know.”

“He was definitely very strong, didn't have any fear at all. He kicked the door in, right off its hinges.”

Steve nods. “Okay, well... I guess you don't know where they went after, do you?”

“No, but you could ask SHIELD.”

“Yeah, I will, thanks.”

“Sorry I couldn't help any more,” Jane says, pressing the button for the elevator. The doors open immediately.

“Don't be, it's not your fault.”

She manoeuvres Bruce into the elevator and reaches out to press for their floor before she pauses. “Steve,” she calls to him as he walks away.

“Yeah?”

“If it is Bucky, then he's got a good friend in Mike. He'll be okay.”

Bruce can't make Steve's face out any more, but he sounds happier when he says, “Yeah, I hope so.”

In their apartment, Jane gives Bruce his pill and a piece of bread to eat, then takes him straight to bed. He's asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow, only waking several hours later with a sense of unease from a dream, or a nightmare, he can't remember. He's curled up in a ball, his back turned to Jane, shivering a little. He can feel the heat she's giving off from her side of the bed, a furnace of warmth and safety, and rolls over to face her, scooting nearer until he's up against her side. She rolls over too, settling her arms around him, and tugs the blankets up higher. Bruce goes back to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One chapter to go, I swear I mean it this time!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for: ableist language, suicidal thoughts, and medical imagery

It takes four days to feel halfway normal again. Or whatever his normal is, now. For the first couple of days, he can barely walk straight and mostly stays in bed, waited on hand and foot, as Jane puts it with a smile.

When he's feeling less fuzzy, Jane tries to remove the black marker lines from his skin. He sits on floor by the bath and Jane sits on the edge of the tub, rubbing at his skin with nail polish remover.

“Coming off?” he asks.

“Not really...” she mutters. “It'll fade on its own eventually.”

“Hair'll grow back,” he says.

“Yeah, that too.”

“Mm, don't like... being bald. Not a good look.”

Jane laughs. “You... do look better with hair,” she allows, and kisses the side of his head.

“ _Much_ better,” he says. “My head's shaped funny.”

Jane clicks her tongue. “Your head is a perfectly head-shaped head.”

He smiles down at his lap. Jane sighs and puts the cotton pad aside to rest her hands on his shoulders. “There's no point doing this, it's just going to give you a rash, or something.”

“Yeah, okay,” he says.

“Let's see how your ribs are doing,” she says, tapping him on the shoulder. He pulls himself to his feet and Jane gets up from the bath; it's strange not to have to help her any more.

Jane pulls up his t-shirt and runs her hand over his chest. “The bruising's gone down a lot.”

“Quick healing,” he says.

“Yep,” she says. “Your eyes look better too. Less raccoony.”

“Thanks.”

She laughs and leans up to kiss him. They fall into a rhythm for a while, her body pressed up against his, her hands trailing up his sides. He wants to press into it, press her against the wall or the sink; he's thought about it for so long, indulged in fantasies about it when he should have been working, but now that he can, his stomach has twisted itself into a knot that he can't undo.

Jane pulls away and smiles. “Let's get some lunch.”

Tony keeps the tower locked up tight, no one unvetted allowed in, and the vetting procedure is long and arduous, even for current employees. Inevitably the media notices that the lower floors of the tower are no longer open to the public and they start their wild speculation. Jane doesn't turn the news on very often.

Thor doesn't leave; he stays under the guise of helping 'defend the tower', but Bruce knows, he _knows_ , Thor is waiting to win Jane's heart back like the gallant knight he is. Jane is now at the peak of physical fitness, he's sure Asgard would love her.

It's such a petty, mean train of thought that it keeps him up nights, brewing in his jealousy and marinating in his guilt. It's a winning combination.

When he's feeling up to leaving the apartment, he has an x-ray of his thumb done; he's got a hairline fracture, but nothing the splint won't fix. Showering remains a long process, but at least he doesn't have any hair to wash. He's a terrible sight to behold in the mirror, even with the bruises having faded considerably. The old scars from when they cracked his head open last time are thankfully mostly clean, but still undeniably visible. He looks like Frankenstein. 

The black marker is worse, though. It maps out exactly how his head should be cut open, and where to the extract the bullet from at the back of his head. He can't help but think of it, in there now, a chunk of metal pressing into his brain. He always knew it was there, but somehow never gave it much thought. Now, he can't stop thinking about it, amazed at how such a small object is all it took to hold Hulk in check; drugs didn't work, blood transfusions didn't work, the most zen of zen meditation didn't work. A bullet, that worked. Apparently he shot himself in the wrong part of the head, last time.

A week out, he feels pretty able to move around the tower, and goes down to the gym. Jane comes with him and now surpasses his efforts by a factor of ten. He runs on the treadmill, and she runs beside him, twice as fast. It's not long before Steve and Tony join them, 'coincidentally'. Steve offers to test how strong Jane really is, and Tony sits down to watch and make comments on their sparring.

Bruce lasts half an hour on the treadmill, by JARVIS's count, before he's out of breath and shaking from the exertion. He clambers off the machine, grabs a bottle of water, and collapses on the bench beside Tony.

“Good workout?”

“Mm.”

Tony raises an eyebrow, then nods to Jane. “Foster's enjoying herself.”

Bruce watches her; Steve has his arms around her, holding her from the back, and Jane is pushing them apart – it's slow going, but she's doing it.

“Yeah.”

Tony nods, then eyes Bruce. “You know, I keep having this intense urge to rub your head for luck.”

“Resist it,” Bruce says.

Tony grins, and looks back at Jane and Steve. Jane pushes Steve's arms far enough apart to duck out of the hold and bounce away. She looks over at them and smiles. Bruce smiles back.

“How's it feel having a girlfriend who's stronger than you?” Tony asks.

“Ask you same thing,” Bruce says.

Tony blinks. “It is pretty damn good. _Pretty_ damn good. Especially in the sack.”

Bruce rolls his eyes and drinks from his bottle again.

“But really, are you doing okay with everything?”

Bruce shrugs.

“Whoa, slow down there, you're talking too fast,” Tony says.

“I'm fine,” Bruce mutters.

“Well, I'm convinced,” Tony says.

Bruce pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Thor's not going to be here forever.”

“Uh huh,” Bruce mutters thinly.

Tony stays quiet for a few minutes after that, and Bruce watches Jane and Steve again. She's punching his open palms now, each impact landing with a loud smack. Her short hair is getting into her face and she shakes it away with a grin, hitting Steve's palms with more force each time. Steve actually rocks back a couple of times.

“Oh, so funny story,” Tony starts up again. Bruce looks over at him. “You know how when you were kidnapped, we all ran around like chickens with our heads cut off?”

Bruce stares at him.

“Right, you weren't there. Well, anyway, because of all the panic, no one told Jen or Susan what was going on. So... Jen called today to ask what's happening with everything about Stark on the news recently, and... long story short, Susan's going to be here in a couple of days.”

“Okay,” Bruce says.

“Yeah? Because I know you've got some complex feelings going on about Susan and everything.”

“Whatever,” he mumbles.

Tony laughs and raises his eyebrows. “'Whatever'? What are you, a highschooler from the eighties?”

Bruce shrugs.

“Oh—kay then,” Tony says. “Well, anyway, I guess Susan and Liz are going to meet, huh? Moms meeting for the first time, now that's scary.”

Bruce sets his jaw. “Susan's not my mom.”

Tony widens his eyes. “No, I know, I just mean, you know... She's like a mom, right? I mean, she raised you, right? And--”

“Shut up,” he says quietly.

“Sorry?” Tony's eyebrows draw together. “I just meant that--”

God, Tony _never_ stops talking, he just talks and talks and talks and talks and Bruce can't even understand half the things he says any more. Bruce stands up, nervous energy racing underneath his skin. “Shut up,” he says, louder. “Shut up, _shut up_.”

“Uh...” Tony murmurs, mouth hanging open. 

The noise from Jane and Steve ceases. “Bruce?” Jane says.

He bolts for the door, not even sure why he's doing it, and runs out into the hallway. He avoids the elevator, knowing that Jane will catch up to him before it comes, and heads for the stairs.

He takes the first three flights two steps at a time, rounding each corner blindly and banging into walls, but after he rounds the fifth flight, his side begins to cramp and his legs shake a little. He staggers up one more flight and sits down on the top step, breathing hard. He leans forward, resting his elbows on his legs, and feels his stomach press against his thighs. He groans and covers his face with his hands.

“Bruce?” Jane says.

He groans again and runs his hands over his head before looking up at her. She twists her mouth and sits down beside him.

“Tony's mad?” he asks.

She smiles a little and shakes her head. “I think he was just shocked that someone finally told him to stop talking.”

Bruce can't make himself smile like he's supposed to at the joke and just looks back down at the floor.

Jane sighs. “Tony didn't mean anything by what he said.”

Bruce nods to the floor. Jane lays her hand on his back.

“He was just digging himself into a hole, you know?”

Bruce nods again. He _does_ know, and he's not even angry at Tony. He's had worse things said to him; he's had worse things said to him _by Tony_.

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “'m gonna... go back to apartment.”

“Sure,” Jane says, “we can watch a movie or something.”

“No,” he says, and Jane's eyebrows go up. “Keep... with Steve, I'm just gonna, uh, lie down.”

She runs her hand up his back, closing her fingers loosely around the base of his neck. Even as loose as her grip is, he can feel the power behind it. He tries not to cringe away.

“It's okay, we were done anyway,” she says.

“No,” he repeats, more forcefully, with more of a whine to his voice. Jane's face gets tense. “No, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna...”

“Okay,” she says, squeezing the back of his neck. “It's all right, I can catch up on some work in the lab if you need space.”

“Sorry,” he mutters, looking at her hand resting in her lap, rather than meeting her eyes.

“Don't be sorry,” she says, and kisses his cheek. “Are you walking up to the apartment?”

He turns and looks at the next flight of stairs. “No.”

She laughs a little and stands up. He struggles up beside her. “I'll get... elevator,” he says, gesturing to the door at the bottom of the stairs that leads out on the floor.

She nods and kisses him on the cheek again. “Okay, I'm going to run down to the lab.”

They part ways and Bruce stumbles to the elevator and rides it back up to the apartment. Liz is in the kitchen and Bruce nods to her with a mumbled 'tired, gonna go to bed'. He shuts the bedroom door behind him and goes to the bathroom, reaching for the cabinet as soon as he steps through the door. He fumbles to get the packet of valium out and pop out enough pills. One pill stopped being enough a few weeks ago, even two only just makes his limbs heavy enough and his mind quiet enough and his heart beat slow enough. His metabolism is racing to take over, increase his tolerance, make him 'stronger'. He goes for three, finishing out a second strip and starting a new one. He puts the empty strip back into the box, though, because otherwise Jane might notice it in the trash.

When he was twenty four he used to leave his and Betty's tenth floor apartment in the middle of the night to throw his cigarette packets into the dumpster outside. He'd keep a nail brush and a bottle of mouthwash in his bag and stop off in public toilets to clean under his nails and gargle before going home. He is going up in the world, drug addiction wise.

He stumbles back to bed, dizzy and vaguely nauseous. He knows he shouldn't raise his dosage like this, he's spent enough years pretending that he's a medical doctor to know that.

But he doesn't care.

He rolls into bed, managing only to undo his fly before passing out.

-

Jane has always enjoyed typing, always been good at it, always been fast, but now her fingers race across the keyboard, hammering out her hypotheses and experiments. Her brain clips along at the speed of her fingers, spitting out thoughts and theories as she goes. She wonders if this is what it is – was? – like for Bruce. The speed at which Bruce's brain went always seemed to be more of a curse than a blessing. Steve told her that the serum just makes you, you but better. Hulk isn't Bruce, but better, is he? She hates to think it, but Hulk is a mostly mindless monster—Bruce isn't that at all, and Hulk seems to have brought nothing but misery into his life.

A hand touches her shoulder and she jumps and spins around in her chair. Thor is standing over her, his eyebrows knitted together. “I called your name but you appeared to be absorbed in your work.”

“Yeah,” she says, glancing back at the computer. “Yeah, I... work faster now...”

Thor smiles. “I see that.”

“Yeah,” she repeats, and stands up. Thor shuffles back a step so that they're not chest to chest. It's the first time they've been alone in a room since he packed his things and left six months ago. He shifts from foot to foot.

“Your hair is different,” he says.

She runs her fingers through it, grasping the short strands for a moment. “I'd had enough of it being long. Do you like it?”

“It... is not a style seen often on Asgard,” he says. “I must admit to having found your long hair most beautiful.”

She laughs. “You don't like it.”

“It is enhanced by your beauty.”

“Oh,” she says, and laughs nervously. He's always had a way of making her feel like she's seventeen and being invited to prom again. She brushes hair away from her face. “Thanks.”

“Dr Foster,” JARVIS announces. “I believe it is time for you to return to your apartment.”

She looks back at the computer; it's six forty five, almost time for Bruce's medication. She looks back up at Thor and clears her throat. “JARVIS is right, I need to go back upstairs and... do some stuff.”

“Of course,” Thor says, and steps aside. “May we speak later?”

“Um... sure,” she says and reaches back to grab her keycard. “I'll, uh... we can figure something out...”

“Thank you,” he says.

She palms the card again and smiles again. “Okay, well, I'll see you later?”

“Yes, see you later,” he echoes.

She waves awkwardly to him as she leaves the room, then hurries a little to the elevator. She's not dumb, she's _knows_ what he wants to talk about, or as close to it. She's certainly less vulnerable than she was when he left, but she feels far more on edge.

She walks into the apartment and finds her mother sitting on the couch, no Bruce in sight. “Did Bruce go to bed?”

“Yeah, he stomped through here a couple of hours ago and slammed the door. Haven't seen him since.”

Still in a bad mood, then. “Okay,” she says, and goes to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water and a couple of cookies. She carries them back out and gets his bottle of pills from the kitchen table before heading into the bedroom. 

Bruce is sprawled on top of the covers, mouth open, as always. She puts the plate and glass down on the night stand and shakes his arm. “Bruce, it's time to take your pill.”

Bruce doesn't so much as twitch.

“Bruce?” she repeats, and shakes him harder. His head flops from side to side but he doesn't stir. She presses her fingers to his neck and his pulse is steady, if a little slow, but he still won't wake up. She takes him by the chin and shakes him again, but it's no use.

“Mom?” she calls. “Mom, can you come in here?”

Mom comes to the door and looks in. “What's wrong?”

“I can't, uh... wake Bruce up,” Jane says, frowning down at him. “He needs to take his medication.”

Mom comes into the room and leans over Bruce. She checks his pulse and pulls his eyelids back. “His pulse seems steady and his eyes look okay. Does he have any sleep disorders?”

“No...” Jane says, thinking on all the times he's been inordinately tired. “I mean, not anything diagnosed. He's been sleeping a lot recently, though.”

“Is he on any other medication?”

“No...” Jane says again, frowning.

Mom nods. “It might be a side effect of the TBI. He should see his neurologist.”

“Will he be okay for tonight?”

“I think so. He's just very heavily asleep. He'll probably feel it tomorrow, especially since his medication's going to be late.”

“Okay,” she says, and runs her fingers through her hair. “Okay, thanks. I'm probably worrying for nothing, huh?”

“I wouldn't say that,” her mother says softly. “Do you need me to do anything else?”

“No, I'm just going to...” She glances at the bathroom door. “Have a shower, I guess.”

“Okay. I'm making spaghetti for supper, would you like me to make you some?”

Jane forces a smile. “Yeah, that would be great, thanks.”

Mom leaves the room with a smile – finally, Jane will eat her food, her heart must have grown three sizes! – and Jane looks at Bruce. Not on any other medication isn't _technically_ correct, but he wouldn't... take the valium without telling her, he wouldn't abuse them. She's not sure he even knows where they are.

She does, though, so she goes into the bathroom and opens up the cabinet over the sink. The box of valium is sitting on the bottom shelf. It's opened at one end.

She picks it up carefully and shakes out the popper strips. Two full strips are empty and the third strip has two missing. That's twenty two missing pills. _Twenty two_.

“JARVIS,” she says, her voice shaking. “What's... what's been going on with Bruce and the valium?”

“I'm afraid I cannot say, Dr Foster, due to my privacy settings.”

She tightens her fingers around the box until she crushes a few pills. That's less for Bruce to take behind her back, at least.

She has a shower and eats the spaghetti with her mom, one eye on the bedroom door. She thinks about all the times he's been asleep in the early afternoon, all the times his speech has been markedly more slurred than normal, all the times he's stared at the TV vacantly for hours. Why did it never occur to her that he seemed sedated?

She can't sleep thinking about it and anticipating Bruce waking up and what she's going to say, so she sits up in bed all night at her computer, only dozing off a couple of times. She gets out of bed at eight and, of course, Bruce is still asleep. She does her teeth, has breakfast, and watches the news with her mother, carefully avoiding discussing anything except the weather.

Finally, at eleven, she hears Bruce stir. She smiles awkwardly at her mother, both of them perfectly aware that he's been asleep for almost a full twenty four hours, and goes into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

He's groaning softly and struggles to sit up for several minutes. Eventually she takes pity on him and helps him up, at which point he slumps forward and buries his face in his hands.

“How are you feeling?” 

He mumbles something unintelligible and she picks up the plate she left on the night stand last night. The water is warm and the cookie is probably stale. “That's partly because you didn't take your pill. Not the one you were meant to, anyway,” she adds as an afterthought.

Bruce doesn't respond, verbally or physically, and she feels a pang of guilty. She's sniping at him and he probably can't even understand what she's saying right now. She sits down beside him and shakes his shoulder gently.

“You need to take your pill,” she says, as he lowers his hands from his face. She takes one of his hands and places the pill in it. He looks at her for a moment, breathing heavily, then puts the pill in his mouth and takes the glass of water from her. He takes a couple of sips, then hands it back.

“You want to eat something?” she says, gesturing to the cookie.

He grimaces and shakes his head.

“All right,” she says, and reaches back to place everything on her night stand again. 

He runs his hands over his face again and Jane rubs his back for a few minutes. “How are you feeling?” she asks again.

“Shit,” he mumbles.

She nods. “Bruce... how long have you been taking the valium for?”

He looks at her with big, bloodshot eyes. “Can we...” He digs his knuckles into his eyes for second and sighs. “Talk... later?”

She drops her hand from his back. “Fine. Do you need anything?”

He shakes his head slowly. “Think I'm gonna... I dunno.”

“Sleep?” she suggests.

“Prob'ly.”

She sets her jaw; he is _so_ good at it, after all. “Okay. Well, my mom will be around, if you start to feel really unwell. I'm going to go to work.”

Bruce doesn't say anything as Jane collects her keycard and leaves the room, shutting the door behind her. Mom asks after Bruce and Jane just mutters something about him being okay and leaves for the lab. She spends the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon working furiously, brushing off any suggestions by JARVIS to visit Tony and check up on Bruce. If she didn't know better, she'd think he was feeling guilty about not telling her about Bruce.

A tap on her shoulder rouses her from her work for a second time. She turns and finds Thor there, again.

“Deja vu,” he says, and smiles.

“I guess so,” she replies.

“May we have that talk now?”

She glances back at the computer – she isn't working on anything pressing, she guesses. “Sure.”

Thor gestures to the couch. “May we sit?”

“Sure,” she repeats. She gets up and follows him to the couch. 

Thor sits with his hands folded in his lap, very prim. It makes her smile a little. “To begin,” he says, “I want you to know that I am very proud of what you've accomplished in the months that I've been gone.”

“Accomplished? I haven't done much.”

“Your strength and your bravery saved both your life and Dr Banner's, and doubtlessly countless others who would fall into the grip of HYDRA.”

She smiles a little. “I guess.”

Thor leans forward and lays his hand on her leg. “I would not lie to you,” he says.

“No,” she says, “I know that...”

He smiles. “When I returned home, I sought the counsel of a great many more people.”

“Oh yeah?”

“There are many places you could study, many people who would like to work with you.”

“Really?” she says. “Like who? Your dad?”

Thor smiles a little. “I would do well to keep you two apart. I'm sure you would leave him in great pain.”

She laughs. “I'd try my best, that's for sure. Did you maybe... talk to Freya again?”

Thor drops his gaze to his hands. “Yes.”

“And what did she have to say?”

“She could... restore your fertility in some fashion.” He looks up at her. “But I have thought long and hard, and I would not need you to involve yourself in any such procedure. I love you, whole as you are.”

She goes still. Thor's hand is still resting on her leg. She believes that he loves her as she is. She believes that. She believes that Bruce loves her as she is, too. God, what is she, Fay Wray caught between Bruce Cabot and King Kong?

Well, _that_ was a mean thought.

“That's what you say now,” she says.

“It's what I'll always say, Jane.”

She sighs and shakes her head. “Look, I know you love me, but either you'd grow to resent me--” Thor opens his mouth to argue and she raises her hand. “--or I'd just be a placeholder.”

“'A placeholder'? Jane, I have _never_ \--”

“I know, I know, but I knew you wanted a... whole litter of kids and... I never kidded myself that I'd be the only woman who you were ever with for the rest of your life, but knowing in eighty years time I'll be dead and you'll still be as young and handsome as you are now, and that you'll find another woman and have your heirs... It's hard to have that always in the back of your head.”

“I cannot promise to never love another again, but I will love you singularly for the rest of our lives together.”

She digs the heels of her hands into her eyes and lets out a breath. “No.”

Thor looks like he expected that; he looks at his hands and nods. “How is Bruce?”

She clears her throat. “He's been doing better.” At least, that's what she thought, up until today.

“Do you love him?”

“Yes,” she says. It comes easily. “Yeah, I do.”

Thor sighs. “I suppose that's all that needs to be said.”

“Yeah...” She glances at the door. “I, uh, need to go do something.”

“Of course,” Thor says, and stands up. She follows suit and they hug awkwardly.

“I'm sorry things didn't work out,” she says.

“As am I,” he murmurs.

When she gets back to the apartment, Mom is on her computer at the kitchen table. Bruce isn't there, but the bedroom door is still closed.

“Is Bruce still here?” she asks.

“Mmhm. I heard him throwing up a few hours ago. I asked if he needed any help and he told me to go away.” Her face gets a little pinched. “Such a polite man you've got there.”

“Yeah... Uh, could you... go out for a while? I need to talk to Bruce...”

“You do,” Mom agrees, and shuts her laptop. “I'm sure I can entertain myself somehow.”

She's pretty pissed, more at Bruce than Jane, Jane guesses, but she collects up her bag anyway and leaves the apartment. Once she's gone, Jane eyes the bedroom door and sighs.

She opens the door without knocking and finds Bruce curled up in a ball, still on top of the covers.

“Bruce,” she says sharply, and he jerks awake immediately. “We need to talk about the valium right now.”

He mumbles something and struggles up into a sitting position, head drooped. She sits down on the end of the bed, facing him.

“How long have you been taking the valium without telling me?”

“It was... it was...” He scrunches his eyebrows together. “Pork.”

“Pork?”

“When I-- made...”

“The hamburgers,” she finishes. That was _months_ ago, when she first went back to work and got all distant and anxious. God, it was just before she forgot to give him his medication – is this her fault? Did she push him into it?

“You never took them at Tony's?”

He shakes his head.

“Is it... because of me?”

He looks at her, then down at the bedspread between his crossed legs.

“It _is_ ,” she says.

He starts picking at the bedspread. “'snot... _you_ ,” he says, and looks up again. “It's... the way... I'm with you. Am with you.”

“What does that mean?”

“Means that I can-- with Tony I could be... crazy. With you I have to... have to not-- break things, and yell, and...” He shrugs.

“Is that what you want to do?”

“Sometimes. I-- Since the... since, I haven't, I can't... control properly. Even with the... the...” He waves his hands vaguely.

“Anti-psychotics?”

He nods. “Still psy—chotic.”

“You're not psychotic.”

He lowers his head again and sighs. “Some—times I am.”

She scoots up the bed until she's sitting beside him and puts her arm around him. He looks up at her with wide eyes.

“My mom's pretty offended that you told her to go away when you were puking earlier.”

He screws up his face and groans. “Sorry.”

“Are you done with the puking now?”

“Yes. Now I'm hungry.”

She snorts and rubs his back. He sighs and leans against her. “You have to stop taking the valium, okay? At least the way you have been so far.”

“Yeah,” he says softly. “Yeah, I know.”

“Good. Because I can take your crazy. Maybe I couldn't before, but I can now.”

He looks at her, his eyes flickering over her face. “Okay,” he says, eventually.

-

Talking to Jane went better than expected, yet it doesn't put him at ease. He feels even more on edge, more twitchy. He stays out of the way for the rest of the day, but can't justify the same the next day and very slowly comes out to the living room. Liz leaves soon after he gets up and is gone until the late afternoon.

“She'll come around,” Jane says.

He decides to cook dinner for them – maybe second time's the charm – but doesn't know what to make.

“How about chicken curry?” Jane suggests. “We've got a jar of curry sauce in the fridge and some chicken breasts in bottom drawer.” She screws up her face. “I hate touching them.”

“Not really curry,” he says.

She laughs and shakes her head. “Sorry, curry hipster, but it's the best we've got.”

“Guess it'll do,” he mutters, then smiles a little. Jane tugs him in and kisses him on the cheek.

Liz comes home at six thirty and Bruce has everything ready to go at seven. Jane gives him his pill while he's standing at the stove, away from Liz. He heats up the sauce quickly, leaving the jar on the counter next to him, and pours it over the plates of chicken and rice. He picks up two of the plates and turns to take them over to the table, his elbow catching the jar and sweeping it off the counter. It hits the floor with a smash and a splat. He freezes, gripping the plates, as Jane rushes into the room.

“What-- oh. Oops.”

Bruce stares at the glass and curry sauce spread out at his feet. He's going to ruin this dinner like he did the last.

“Hey, it's okay, there wasn't much left in it.” She approaches him, her socks stopping just before the mess and repeats, “hey. I'll clean it up, you go put the plates on the table.”

He looks back up at her. She rests her hand on his shoulder and smiles. “Put the plates on the table.”

He nods and starts to shift away as Liz calls out, asking what happened.

“Just a spill,” Jane calls back.

She stays in the kitchen for a few minutes as Bruce puts the plates down and Liz comes over to the table. He smiles awkwardly at her, then looks back at the kitchen; should he go back in and help? He probably should, he made the mess, but then maybe he'd just get in the way. Jane comes back with the last plate before he can make a decision, though, and they all sit down.

“There's still a little bit of glass on the floor,” she says, “I'll get it later.”

“This chicken is very nice,” Liz says, “you're a good cook, Bruce.”

“Thanks,” he mumbles. “Mm. Um... I'm sorry I was... shouted yesterday.”

Liz smiles. “Oh, it's okay. I suppose every man has the right to throw up in peace.”

“Uh... yeah,” he murmurs.

“Are you going to see your doctor?”

He looks at Jane and she smiles a little. “Maybe next week,” she says.

Liz hums and looks suspicious, but doesn't say anything more. They eat in silence for a few minutes, and he's not sure if Liz was lying to him, because the chicken tastes of nothing, even with the sauce. After a while, a phone starts ringing and Jane jumps up to get it.

“Sorry, that's my cell,” she says, grabbing it off the coffee table. “Hello? Oh... yes, hello, doctor.”

She wanders back over to the table and sits down. Bruce keeps his attention on his plate.

“Yes, Uh huh, yeah.” Jane bends one knee to her chest, bracing her foot on the edge of the chair, and rests her chin on her knee. “Oh, that doesn't sound good. Yeah, yeah, I understand. Mmhm. Can I get back to you on that? No, no, I know. Mmhm... Yes. Okay, thank you, doctor, have a good evening, bye.” She lowers the phone and presses.

“Well, looks like I've got a spinal fracture,” she says, and grins. “I need surgery as soon as possible.”

“Jane, that isn't funny,” Liz says.

“Oh, come on, it kind of is. I don't know how I'm going to explain why I don't need the surgery any more.”

“It's...” Bruce starts. Jane and Liz look at him. “It's... good don't need it,” he offers, trailing off into a mumble.

Jane smiles and squeezes his knee under the table. “Yeah, thanks to you.”

He nods and goes back to the tasteless chicken.

They watch a movie after dinner that Bruce doesn't understand at all but Liz seems to enjoy, then Jane takes him to bed. She undresses him after he's been sitting on the bed staring at the wall while she did her teeth. She tugs his t-shirt over his head and tosses it into the laundry hamper, then starts on the drawstring of his pants. He snaps back to the present and drops his hands to his waistband.

“Can do it,” he mutters.

“Sure,” Jane says, and lifts her hands to his chest. “Your bruises are gone now.”

“Yeah...”

She nods for a moment, then touches his face. “Are you okay?”

“Mm...” he murmurs, neither nodding nor shaking his head.

Jane sighs and cups his cheek. “Go do your teeth.”

He nods slowly and gets up. His sweatpants slip down his hips and he holds one side as he shuffles into the bathroom. When he shuffles back out, he puts on the pyjama bottoms that Jane hands him and gets into bed.

“Hey,” she says. “How are you feeling?”

He shrugs and scoots down. Jane's silent for a moment before turning on her side and settling her arm across his chest. She runs her fingers into his chest hair and kisses his shoulder.

“It's okay,” she says softly.

“Mm,” he hums, and shuts his eyes.

-

Jane gets another phone call the next day, in the afternoon while they're sitting on the couch watching TV and Jane's rubbing circles on his thigh. Liz is out again, he thinks. This phone call doesn't make Jane smile, though, and she pulls away from him when she looks at the screen of the cellphone.

“I'm just gonna--” She gestures towards the bedroom and he nods his agreement. She gets up and he looks back the TV. He doesn't know what they're watching.

Jane is gone for a while, long enough for a car chase to start on the screen.

“Hey,” she says softly, cupping her hands over the phone. “It's, uh. It's Betty, do you want to...?”

He blinks and looks at her, then back at the TV, then takes a breath. “Okay.”

Jane hands over the phone. “Do you want me to stay?”

He nods and lifts the phone to his ear. Jane settles back down beside him. “Hel—lo,” he says.

“Hi, Bruce,” Betty says, in a way that Bruce can only term as 'motherly'. “I just wanted to... Well, we haven't talked in a while...”

“Yeah,” he says. “How's-- Baby?”

“Oh,” she says, and laughs nervously. “Still got a couple of months to go on that.”

“Okay,” he says.

“It's, uh. It's a girl,” she says.

“Congrats,” he mumbles. They talked about having a little girl once. He had a panic attack in the bathroom right after and Betty stopped talking about kids after.

“I'm sorry I haven't seen you since... you were hurt.”

“'sokay. Happens lot.”

Betty laughs a little again. “It seems like it, yeah. So, Jane told me that she's, uh, like you now?”

“Yeah.”

“What's that like?”

Bruce glances at Jane, who smiles and rubs his leg. “Weird.”

“I bet. Are you okay?”

“Sure.”

Betty draws a breath to speak but a small voice calls out in the background, something about toys and spilt juice, and Betty starts talking to him, to Max, Bruce forgotten. He digs his fingers into his leg. Jane looks at him questioningly and he shrugs.

“I'm really sorry, Bruce, I've got to, uh...”

“Yeah,” he says, “it's okay. I have, mm, okay...”

“I'll call again soon and I'll try to visit... Well, sometime, yeah.”

“Okay. Bye.”

“Bye, Bruce,” she replies quietly, and Bruce hands the phone back to Jane.

She says a quick goodbye to Betty, then hangs up and turns to him. “Was that okay?”

“Sure.”

She pulls a face. “You don't really like talking on the phone, do you?”

He shakes his head. Jane puts her arm around his shoulder and yanks him in. That night, when they go to bed, Jane wraps around him so tight that he can't break free until morning.

-

The week passes slowly. Everyday he gets up, he showers, he eats, he ignores the feeling in his gut. Jane is there all the time, she touches him, holds his hand, hugs him, makes silly jokes and tries to get him to smile. Liz is still there and he doesn't know why. He wants to stay in the bedroom all the time, he doesn't want her to see him, but Jane looks so worried if he doesn't get up. She takes _very_ good care of him.

At the end of the week, Susan arrives. Jane tells him when he wakes up. It's still early, she says, and she's still in her pyjamas. He drags himself up and scoots over to sit on the edge of the bed.

She changes out of her clothes without embarrassment now, her scars standing proudly against her skin, the muscles in her thighs bulging out as she stretches up, stretches her arms up to the ceiling. She looks like a cheetah, especially when she stalks forward towards him, in just her underpants, her breasts bared to him.

He looks up at her and she smiles. She wants him to touch her, she wants to have _sex_ with him, but he just sits there, looking at her like an idiot. She leans down and kisses him on the cheek, then moves off to the chest of drawers.

“Can I ask you something?” 

“Uh huh,” he mumbles.

“What was it like, growing up with Susan?”

“Um.” He looks over his shoulder at her as she pulls a t-shirt out of the drawer. “Okay.”

“Yeah, but I mean--” She tugs the t-shirt on and closes the drawer. “Was she... did she take good care of you?”

“Sure. I guess.”

She sighs quietly and comes back over to the bed. “But I mean...” She sits down beside him and clasps her hands in her lap. “Did she love you? Did you feel loved?”

He looks over at her but can't meet her gaze. “I... guess so. I guess she did.”

“I think she did,” Jane says. “She told me stuff about when you were growing up, she was really proud of you, she really... felt close to you, I think.”

“Maybe,” he says. Did he feel close to Susan? He's fairly sure he felt close to no one as a child. Not after... Closeness is terrifying. This is terrifying.

“She's in the penthouse, after breakfast we should go up.”

He sucks on his teeth, then nods.

They go up to the penthouse after he's picked over some toast, and Susan is there, talking with Tony and Pepper. When she turns to look at him, her eyes widen and her face falls; his bruises might be gone, but he's still got a patchy, bald head, and black marker on his skin. It's faded some, but not enough.

She rushes over and hugs him, though he doesn't reciprocate. He hears Pepper say something about leaving them alone and Tony and Jane protest for a moment before being ushered out.

“Sit?” Bruce asks, gesturing to the vacated couch.

Susan takes a breath and nods. “Good idea.”

As soon as they get to the couch, Susan starts crying softly.

“Don't cry,” he says, and not in the nice, comforting way people say it. It sounds sharp and mean and she takes a breath and presses her hand to her mouth, nodding.

“I'm okay,” he says.

Susan looks at him, at his bald head, her eyebrows scrunched and tears threatening to spill again. “What did they do to you?”

He shrugs. “They-- I was... drugged, most...” He was unconscious for most of it, most of the things he remembers are probably hallucinations. His father, the water, the hospital, the biting... “They didn't, uh... hurt me bad.”

Susan presses her fingers to her mouth. “I should have taken you back to Ohio with me.”

Bruce bristles at the word 'taken'. “Would've just killed you... HYDRA.” Not him. He probably wouldn't have.

Susan swallows and looks away. Bruce looks at his hands for a minute, then back up.

“Did...”

“Yes?” Susan says quickly.

“Did... Was I in hos—pi—tal when I was little?”

Susan frowns. “What do you mean?”

“When... little, was I... hos—pi—talised.” It's a hard word to say and he knows that he butchers the pronunciation, but something registers on Susan's face.

“You were...” she says slowly. “Rebecca called me, even though... Brian didn't want her too. They thought you had meningitis for a while, but you recovered. You can't have been more than two. Do you remember that?”

“Not until... drugging.” He twists his fingers together. “It wasn't-- I think... Bri—an poisoned me.”

“ _What_?” Susan says, reaching forward and grabbing his hands. “How... Are you sure?”

He nods. “Think so. He did... drowned me... later on.”

“Oh my God,” Susan murmurs, and wraps her arms around him. “I'm so sorry. The social worker said... We didn't think he'd done anything to you except... hitting. You never talked about it.”

When she pulls back, she's crying again, just a little, and Bruce looks back down at his hands. “It's okay. I didn't... tell you things. I didn't... want to. Wanted to forget. I'm sorry I was such a brat,” he finishes, and smiles a little.

“Oh no, no, no,” Susan says with surprising vehemence. “You were such a good boy. You were so sweet and kind. People were so mean to you and it broke my heart. I wish I'd done more, I wish I'd stopped Elaine and Morris from treating you so badly. I wish I'd stopped Brian...”

She trails off and Bruce finds that he's crying now, tears rolling down his cheeks.

“Do you want me to get Jane?” Susan asks softly.

Bruce shakes his head and drags the heels of his hands across his wet cheeks. How pathetic is it that being told he's a good boy makes him cry? Susan hugs him again, and this time he hugs back, pressing his face into her shoulder. Susan strokes his back and mumbles words he doesn't understand. He pulls away after a few minutes, embarrassed, and wipes at his face with his sleeve.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “Uh. I cry a lot now. It's... em—bar—rassing.”

“You cried a lot when you were little,” she says, and reaches out to wipe at his cheek. He doesn't mind it. “I used to hold you in my lap and rock you to sleep.”

“I don't remember that.”

She smiles sadly. “It was when Rebecca...” She shakes her head. “You wouldn't really let me touch you after she passed.”

He nods. He went to Harvard when he was sixteen. He could have stayed the extra two years, he wasn't ready for college life at all, but the thought of being with Susan longer than his mom, the idea that Susan was going to become his mom, despite her assurances that she'd never replace her, those thoughts drove him to Boston.

“'m sorry I stopped visi—ting. It wasn't... you.” They might be sharing stuff, but there's only so far he's willing to go.

“It's okay,” Susan says, “I understand.”

She doesn't. She definitely does not understand why he stopped visiting, but that's okay. Jane and Tony come back not long after and both start fussing over his blotchy face and red-rimmed eyes. Susan smiles at them and Bruce lets it go with just a couple of exasperated sighs.

-

He has a shower in the evening after supper and brushes his teeth. Jane moves around him, washing up, and Bruce keeps shuffling from side to side to let her pass. Holding the toothbrush is as hard as holding pens and cutlery and he takes twice as long at it as she does. She kisses the back of his neck before leaving the bathroom to get into bed and Bruce slowly finishes up. His front tooth isn't as loose as it was, which Jane told him would happen. He finishes up and switches to his floss, twisting the strand tight around his fingers until his fingertips start to turn purple. He bares his teeth to the mirror to slide the floss in and starts moving it back and forth. He pulls his lips back further, almost snarling, and stares at himself until Jane calls from the bedroom to stop before his gums start to bleed. He yanks the floss from his teeth and washes his mouth out quickly before joining Jane in bed.

He sleeps fitfully, if it's sleep at all. He thinks he's awake, he can feel Jane beside him, he can see the ceiling above him even if there are strange shadows moving on it. He turns his head to look at Jane; she's sound asleep, the covers pulled down to her waist. She has one arm over her head, her mouth open slightly, her chest a steady rhythm. She seems peaceful, he thinks.

Something moves quickly on the ceiling. He looks back up as the grey mass darts to the corner of the ceiling and slides down the wall and out of sight. He tries to move but he's being held down, able only to swivel his head from side to side. Even his mouth doesn't work, his throat clicking uselessly when he tries to speak.

The shadow races up the covers, sliding up Jane's body until it stops around her throat. It encircles her neck, it's going to strangle her, it's going to envelope her and smother her. He struggles and struggles to break free – they're holding him down too, that's what they're doing – as more of them appear, running all over her body like bugs, like cockroaches, swarming over her skin.

Finally he breaks free and tries to get them off her, scrabbling at her skin.

Jane's hand shoots out and she grabs one of his wrists. Her grip is so tight his bones could snap from the pressure. She opens her eyes. 

“What are you doing?”

“Some—some—” His other hand is still free and he runs it over her collarbone. “ _Thing_ on you.”

“What?” she says, her eyebrows drawing together. A shadow moves across her cheek.

“On you,” he repeats.

She slaps the night stand light on and drags herself up to sit. She stretches her arms out and looks at them, then feels her face and her neck. The shadows jump from her chin to her hand as she passes over them.

“There's nothing on me,” she says.

“ _Is_ ,” he says, and touches her cheek, running his thumb right over one. “Sha—dows.”

Jane purses her lips, her gaze dropping away from his face for a moment. “Bruce, you're hallucinating.”

“'m _not_ ,” he insists. “I can-- they're-- hurt you, scratch, bite...”

His face is wet all of a sudden, tears squeezing out of the corners of his eyes. “Hurt—ing you.”

“Nothing's hurting me,” she says softly.

“Bit you...” he says and starts to cry more. “I bit you.”

“What? No, no, you didn't. You've never done anything like that.”

He feels everything at once, the demon inside him, making him crazy, the darkness, making him paralysed inside his own head. He's crying harder now, his whole body shaking. “Bit... Bri-- Doctor. The...”

“Someone from HYDRA?” Jane says. “Maybe.”

“Like a dog,” he says thickly, curling in on himself. “Down. Put me _down_.”

He wants to die, he wants to die, _he wants to die_. Hulk kept him alive, Hulk left him. He wants to die.

“Oh my God,” Jane says raggedly. “No, no, _Bruce_. Maybe I should get Mom.”

He howls, he howls like a dog in pain, like the animal he is, twisting his hands into his chest.

“Okay,” Jane says quickly. “Okay, okay, I'm not going to-- I'm gonna stay right here. Bruce? _Bruce_?” she adds desperately.

He looks up at her – her face is entirely shadow now, undulating under her skin, no light. He squeezes his eyes shut. It's just a hallucination.

“Do you... do you want a sedative?”

He nods quickly and the mattress moves under him. Jane is back in a second with the pills and feeds him one carefully.

“More,” he mumbles.

“Another one? You're only meant to take one...”

“More,” he repeats, groping at her hands blindly. 

“Okay, one more,” she says, and gives him the second pill. He tries to clamour for a third but she pulls them away, dropping them to the floor.

“Okay, lie down. Keep your eyes closed. Lie down.”

He lies back against the mattress, keeping his eyes shut tight. Jane holds onto him, pulling him into her chest, murmuring quietly. He doesn't understand, but if he's just a dog, then he doesn't need to.

-

She's in the bathroom when he wakes up, he can hear the water running. He closes his eyes before she comes back out. He's on his side at the edge of the bed, facing the bathroom door, and Jane gets back onto the bed behind him. She's still for a minute before sighing.

“I know you're awake,” she says. “You're breathing more shallowly.”

He opens his eyes again, they feel dry and gritty, and rolls over to face her. Her face, thankfully, is free of any... shadow, and the thought of it this morning, or this afternoon or whatever time it is, is ridiculous. Obviously it was a hallucination, though he was loath to accept it last night.

“How are you feeling?”

He licks his lips, also dry, and takes a breath. “Bad.”

“Yeah,” Jane says. “I bet. What happened last night?”

“Mm...” Psychosis is what happened, but he doesn't want to tell her that. “I remembered...” He pauses to collect his thoughts and suddenly it all slots into place. “Biting the... HYDRA doctor. I, I tore his... skin off...”

“Oh,” Jane says quietly.

“Did you know?”

“Not exactly, I wasn't there, but there was blood on your teeth and Jemma said that it wasn't yours.”

He nods and drums his fingers on his leg to stave off the full body twitches for a little while. “I was-- when-- in my head, I was... Hulk. I came, became him... He made me fight.”

“Okay,” Jane says. “That's good, right?”

He sits up and looks at her. She's cross-legged on the bed, wearing jeans and a tank top. He reaches out and touches her collarbone. “I scratched you,” he says.

She frowns for a moment before pursing her lips. “That was months ago.”

“Betty,” he says. Tony had to wrestle him to the couch to stop him from hurting himself. He struggled and he fought, and he scratched her. Weeks later he saw the marks on her chest – he must have drawn blood.

“Yeah,” Jane says.

“I was... crazy,” he says. “Hulk...” Hulk is like a blood letting, he bleeds off the worst of Bruce's insanity, he protects him from it. He's always been part of Bruce, even before he took form. He was there in the graveyard, he was there in Bruce's bedroom as a teenager when he was punching holes in walls. Maybe he was born in the bathtub with the water rushing into Bruce's nose and ears, or maybe he was there right from day one. Maybe, in some way, Brian was right about Bruce being a freak. Bruce has run from this realisation for close to a decade, but it felt right, somehow, to be Hulk. He felt more at peace than he ever had before. He was scared and disgusted at himself, but somehow it was right to be a monster, to become a monster; it was Bruce without his masks and his lies and his carefully constructed, socially acceptable life story. It felt, with the monster, that he could be the man as well.

“Need Hulk...” he finishes.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean...” His twitching increases and Jane takes his hands and squeezes them. “I need... surgery. The... bullet surgery.”

Jane eyes widen and her grip on his hands tightens. “Bruce, that surgery... it's really dangerous and there's no guarantee that it'll work or that HYDRA was even right about the bullet. It could just, it make everything worse.”

He nods. “I know, but. I have-- to try. I have to-- I need... you to under—stand. No one else... will.”

She narrows her eyes. “Are you using my words back at me?”

He smiles a little. “Yeah. But I do... need Hulk. I'm-- he's here, in head, but can't get out. He's part of me, I need... to be... together. Be whole.”

Jane gnaws on her lip, looking at the clasped hands for a very long time before nodding. “I do understand. The thought of you having brain surgery again terrifies me, but... it's your decision.” She takes a breath, her eyes getting red. “I'll... support you.”

“Thank you,” he says, and when her face starts to wobble he scoots over and pulls her into his chest to hug her. She slips into his lap and tucks her head against his shoulder. This is the first time they've ever hugged like this, he realises, and it was Hulk's doing, allowing Jane to sit like this without any pain. This is a good thing. Hulk is a good thing.

-

Telling everyone about his decision causes a few more tears and a lot more yelling matches, but finally, after Jane gets up in Tony's face at the crescendo of the argument, everyone acquiesces to Bruce's wishes. They call SHIELD in again and the Jemma that Jane talked about but Bruce barely remembered comes to discuss the surgery with them.

“HYDRA's theory was fairly solid,” she says, gesturing to an x-ray of Bruce's brain. “The bullet is pressing against the amygdala here, which controls emotion, fear, and memory. Since your transformations hinge on your emotional state, taking the pressure off might release your ability to change.”

“I guess it makes sense that you'd have trouble remembering things, too,” Jane says, her hand wrapped around his. He nods.

“How did you get those?” Tony asks Jemma, gesturing to the x-rays. He's sitting on the arm of the couch while Bruce and Jane sit side by side and Jemma sits across from them.

Jemma clears her throat and smiles apologetically.

“Uh huh,” Tony says, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Will it work?” Bruce asks. “Taking out?”

“It might. I would say there's a... forty percent likelihood, maybe a bit more. But it may do nothing and the surgery itself is extremely risky and could... exacerbate your TBI.”

He nods. “But SHIELD has... better tech—no—logy? More... better than the hospital?”

“We have advancements in key hole technology that aren't available to the public--” Tony makes a derisive noise and Jemma glances at him. “Or even major technology companies. But Dr Banner, I have to tell, if you're hoping that the removal of the bullet will also reverse the symptoms of your brain injury, that's very unlikely to happen. I-- we have a colleague who... is in a similar position, and I know that an easy fix sounds desirable.”

Bruce nods slowly. She's said a lot of things and quite fast; it takes him a process the information. “Yeah, I... know it might not-- prob'ly won't help... this...” He smiles a little at his stumbling and Jemma smiles back. “But it's, the, not-- not my main con—cern.”

Jemma's pensive expression clears. “Okay,” she says. “We'll need to get a team together.”

The team includes SHIELD doctors who are apparently beyond the cutting edge, along with Tony's own cadre of surgeons. There are discussions about the fact that if the surgery is a success, Hulk might come out to play while Bruce is still on the table. Bruce tells the doctors that they can pull out if the risk is too great, but only one takes him up on that offer. Tony gets a security team together for the day that includes Steve and Rhodey in his suit and even Thor (Bruce doesn't bother arguing about it) and Jane reminds him that she's pretty strong these days.

“We'll give you a lot of anaesthesia,” Jemma promises.

The surgery, they estimate, will take around five hours, and Tony chips in that he was in surgery for much longer last time. Despite the surgery being less invasive than any of the options available in hospitals, they're still going to have to crack his head open. Jemma says they'll try to use some of the same incision sites as last time to prevent further scarring.

“Will his hair grow back okay?” Jane says, then starts to blush immediately. Bruce grins at her. “I just like it, okay?” she mutters. Jemma assures them that Bruce's hair should grow back fine.

He feels oddly light in the days leading up to the surgery. Happy. No one else is happy, Tony and Susan are on the verge of a breakdown, Steve is stoically anxious, Pepper is stiff and organised, and Jane is cheerful in the day but cries at night. But Bruce is happy, Bruce is happy while the walls crumble around him.

He is one perverse bastard.

The night before the surgery is strange, though. They have dinner in the penthouse with everyone's eyes on Bruce, eating in silence. It takes Bruce only five minutes to flip his fork off the table and onto the floor.

“Fuck,” he says loudly, and leans down under the table to retrieve it. When he sits up again, everyone is still staring at him. “Not a _wake_ ,” he says, and Steve is the first to laugh, muttering 'shit' under his breath. Tony invites both of them to wash their mouths out with soap in a slightly shaky voice, and the spell is somewhat broken.

After dinner they all watch a movie together that, of course, Bruce doesn't understand, and then finally Tony lets Bruce, Jane, and Liz go back down to Jane's apartment. 

“If there's anything you need,” Liz says as he and Jane head for the bedroom.

He smiles and nods. “Thanks.”

Jane cries a little after they've done their teeth. She curls her arms around her knees and cries quietly, and Bruce doesn't notice for a few minutes as he wrestles with his pyjama top.

“Jane?” he murmurs when he finally sits down on the bed.

“I'm okay,” she says softly.

He strokes his hand over her hair, tucks some behind her ear, and runs his thumb over her cheekbone.

“That night,” she says, then pauses for a moment. “That night, you said you wanted to die. Are you... do you still want to die? Is this...”

Is this surgery some elaborate plan to kill himself, he finishes in his head. “No. I have... in the past. Tried.” Jane's tears come faster, brimming in her eyes and rolling down her face, and she rubs at her nose. “Know that's not... what you want to hear. But I-- the, the hal—lu—cinations made it worse. The feelings of... trapped and... useless and crazy. It doesn't feel... good, being so out of control. With Hulk, I had control in... a per—verse way. Do you know what I mean?”

She wipes her hand over her face. “Sort of. Before you could struggle and win over Hulk, but now that's been taken away from you.”

“Yeah. I always thought that get—ting rid of Hulk would... make me better, but I didn't realise how... much he is me.”

“Okay,” she says. “I get that. I'll be okay.”

They get under the covers and cuddle, Jane pressing close to his chest. Jane gets no sleep at all, she tells him in the morning, but Bruce sleeps like a baby.

The surgery is taking place in the tower, on the medical floor; Tony doesn't trust anyone outside of the core group at the moment, and Bruce realises that he and Jane haven't set foot outside the tower since the kidnapping. SHIELD were sceptical of Tony's ability to fully kit out one of the rooms for surgery, but he manages it, bringing in every sort of emergency equipment.

The surgery is set for ten am. He wraps Jane in a hug before they prep him.

“Don't die,” she says.

He presses a kiss to her hair. “I won't.”

He hugs Susan, and Jen, who's taken the day off work, and Tony too.

“You're an absolute lunatic, Banner,” he says, slapping Bruce on the back. “Must be why I like you so much.”

“Must be.”

Tony pulls back and waves a finger at him. “If you die, me and Jane are coming up to the afterlife to drag you back, understood?”

“Understood,” Bruce echoes.

“Your friends really love you,” Jemma says as she gets him on the table.

“Yeah,” he says.

She smiles and pats his shoulder. “We're going to put the IV in now, okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, and smiles. Jemma gestures to someone, staying up by Bruce's head.

“You're very calm,” she says.

“Uh huh,” he says. “I'm... excited.”

“Well, that's a very good thing to be,” she says kindly. How old is she, he wonders. Twenty three, twenty four?

Someone out of sight says something and Jemma drifts away for moment before coming back with an oxygen mask. “I'm going to put this over your mouth, okay?”

“Okay,” he says.

She gets him to lift his head a little to pull the elastic around the back of his head, then pats his shoulder again. “Okay, I want you to count back from ten, okay?”

“Okay. Ten, nine, eiii...”

-

As soon as the saw starts up to cut into Bruce's skull, Sam ushers Jane and Tony out of the observatory room that sits above the laboratory/theatre.

“There are just some things you don't need to see,” he says.

Jane nods; she already has so many images running through of her head of his papery white skin, his dried lips, his dark beard, she doesn't need to see any more.

“He'll be okay,” Steve says.

Jane nods again and wraps her arms around herself.

“I'm not just saying that,” Steve adds. “Me and Bruce are similar, we're made tough. So are you.”

“I hope so,” she murmurs.

“ _Coffee_ ,” Tony says, and takes her by the shoulders to lead her away to an adjacent room that is doubling as a waiting area. Thankfully, Thor is keeping his distance, despite volunteering as one of Bruce's 'guards'; today is difficult enough as it is, she doesn't have it in her to dance around the awkwardness.

She drinks a cup of coffee provided by Pepper and Steve. It's good coffee and she sucks it down quickly before resting her head back against the wall.

“Where's Susan?” she asks.

“With Jen and your mom,” Steve says.

The look on her face makes them all laugh.

“They're not plotting anything, don't worry,” Pepper says. “I think your mom is just telling Susan a bit more about the surgery.”

“Okay, that's good. How is Susan?”

“Stressed,” Pepper says. “Your mom is talking her down.”

Jane nods slowly and rubs at her eyes. “I didn't get any sleep last night,” she says, and sighs.

“I don't think any of us did,” Tony replies.

“Bruce did. He snored all night.”

Tony laughs a little. “Well, Bruce is a special kind of guy. I've said it before: he gets off on misery.”

“Tony,” Steve says with a reproachful tone to his voice.

“What? Too indiscreet for your virgin ears?” Tony says with a half-hearted sneer.

Steve shakes his head a little and smiles.

Jane can count the hours by the number of coffees she drinks; approximately one every sixty five minutes, she estimates. Four so far. Jen and Susan and her mom come and join them, and Steve steps out for a few minutes to check on Bruce's progress; he comes back looking a little green.

“How's it going?” she asks.

“It's going fine,” Steve says.

It goes fine for another hour before JARVIS pipes up with a curt, “Sir, Dr Banner is having a seizure.”

Jane is the first out the room and down the hall, followed by Tony and the others behind them. She runs into the observation room and plasters herself to the glass. Bruce's whole body is rigid, his hands tensed into fists so tight that his knuckles have turned white. The doctors are rushing around him, filling IV bags and sticking him with needles. Jane can see where his brain is exposed, a hole cut in his skull the size of an orange, dried blood on his skin. The laboratory is sound-proofed, so she watches all of this play out like some awful silent movie. Sam was right that she shouldn't see it.

“Jesus,” Tony murmurs beside her, and puts his hand on her back.

The seizure goes on for another couple of minutes, or forever as far as she's concerned, before Bruce relaxes again. Jemma looks up to the window and smiles, and one of the doctors not covered in blood turns the intercom on.

“Everything is fine here,” she says. “It shouldn't be long now.”

Jane nods, and Tony puts his arm round her as they file back out. “Like Steve said, he's tough as shit.”

“That's not exactly what I said,” Steve murmurs with a smile.

An hour later, and the surgery is over. Another former laboratory has been set up as a recovery room, and they wheel Bruce in there as Jemma comes out to speak with everyone. She's pale and sweaty, tendrils of hair sticking to her face.

“We got the bullet out,” she says, “there were no major problems aside from the seizure.”

“Why did he have a seizure in the first place?” Susan says, her voice tense. She looks like she's about to vibrate out of her skin.

“Well, actually, as strange as it sounds, it might be a good sign. Dr Banner's seizure began as soon as the bullet stopped pressing on his amygdala – it's possible that the seizure was influenced in some way by the Hulk.”

Susan doesn't look convinced. “Has it caused any more brain damage?”

“I can't say anything for certain until Dr Banner is conscious, but there's no reason to believe that any further damage was caused.”

“Can we see him?” Jane asks.

Jemma smiles. “Yes, of course. It'll probably take him a few hours to come round.”

It takes four hours for him to begin coming round, and the first thing he does is start pulling at the oxygen mask away from his face, groaning slightly.

Jane gets out of the chair she's been sitting in – her and Susan have stayed the whole time, the others have drifted in and out. “Hey, hey, Bruce, it's okay, you're okay.”

His hand drops from the cannula with a soft huff of air.

“I'll get the doctor,” Susan says.

Jane nods without looking back at her, and Bruce another, deeper, breath.

“Hey,” she says softly, and strokes his hand.

“Mm,” he murmurs. He licks at his lips and his eyelashes flutter but don't open for a moment.

Susan returns with Jemma and the others a couple of minutes later, as Bruce manages to crack one eye open.

Jemma leans over him for a minute and pulls out a small flashlight to check his eyes. “How are you feeling?”

“Mm...” he mumbles again, shying away from the light.

“Can you tell me your name?”

He smacks his lips together for a moment. “Mm... B... Bru... ser...”

Jemma smiles. “And what's my name?”

Bruce's gaze flicks from Jemma's face to the wall and back again, although it doesn't seem like he's really focusing on anything.

Jemma hums slightly and ushers Jane forward. “What's her name, Bruce?”

Bruce looks at Jane with his mouth slightly open and stretches out his hand. “J... ane...” he mumbles, a smile spreading across his face. She smiles back and takes his hand – his grip is weak but he squeezes back all the same.

“Can you name anyone else in the room?” Jemma asks.

Bruce keeps looking at Jane for a few more seconds before turning his gaze around the room. “Mm... To—ny, Su—su—an, mm, St...st...s...” He looks back at Jane for help.

“Steve,” she says.

“Mmhm,” he hums.

“Okay,” Jemma says, “I'll forgive you for not remembering my name. How are you feeling?”

“Gooood,” he says slowly. “Mm, good.”

Jemma smiles. “That would be the painkillers.”

Tony laughs. “He's high as a kite.”

“In layman's terms, yes.”

Bruce smiles and rubs his thumb against the side of Jane's palm. “Not... fir... ti—me,” he mumbles.

Tony laughs again. “I fucking knew it, man.”

“Perhaps it's time Dr Banner got some rest,” Jemma says. “He has a heavy dose of anaesthetic to sleep off.”

Everyone agrees that it's time to leave Bruce alone, but when Jane reluctantly pulls her hand away from his, he makes a distressed noise in the back of his throat.

“Can I stay with him?” 

“I don't see why not,” Jemma says, “it might help him sleep better.”

The rest of them leave and Jane drags a chair over to his bed side, Bruce watching her the whole time.

“Time sit?” he asks, and it takes her a few seconds to parse it as 'time's it?'.

“It's after eight,” she says, and when he frowns, she adds, “in the evening.”

“Mm. Ti—ed?”

“Am I tired?” She hasn't slept in over twenty four hours, yet she's not tired at all. Emotionally, though, she's exhausted. “No, I'm fine.”

Bruce frowns like he doesn't believe her. “Bed...”

“What about bed?”

He thumps his hand against the thin mattress. “Ge'in?”

She shakes her head, smiling. “There's not enough room, and you're not up for scooting over right now, are you?”

“Mm, dunno, we could... mm... se—s... ex?”

She laughs. “You really are high. Are you really horny right now, doped up in a hospital bed?”

He smiles. “Not the... with... ca—cathhh...”

“Not with the catheter in? Yeah, that would be painful.”

“Did... work?” he asks, changing the subject completely. 

“The surgery? Well, they got the bullet, so I guess we'll just see what happens next.”

He nods slowly, his eyelids drooping. She takes hold of his hand again, rubbing it between her palms. 

“Go to sleep, I'll be here the whole time.”

“Mmhm,” he murmurs, eyes now shut.

-

Jemma wants Bruce to stay in the recovery for several days, but Bruce is typically stubborn and insists on going back to their apartment after only two days. Jane thinks that has something to do with the fact that she's been sleeping in the chair next to him in the evenings.

Jemma gives her an antibacterial wash and a bunch of new dressings for Bruce's scar and tells her that she'll need to change his pillowcases daily. His wound is covered just with a flat bandage, which doesn't seem like nearly enough protection – in the back of her head, she keeps thinking that the orange-sized piece of bone they cut out is just going to pop out again. She also gives Jane a bottle of steroids that he has to take, and instructions on how many and how often.

The elevator ride back up to the apartment is enough to wipe Bruce out on the first day, and he sleeps for hours, only waking long enough for his pill and a protein drink before passing out again. He sleeps so deeply at first that Jane wakes up a couple of times in the night to check that he's still breathing.

On the fourth day after the surgery, she wakes him up to have a bath; now that he's not riding high on the painkiller wave he groans and complains about being woken up.

“Come on, you need a bath, I've already run it in.”

“Bed,” he mumbles.

“Bath.”

“Bed bath,” he murmurs.

She laughs and kisses him on the cheek. He opens his eyes to slits. 

“Come on, you need to walk around a little.”

He keeps muttering complaints but lets her help him to the bathroom and into the bath. He very slowly rubs soapy water onto his skin as she sits on the edge of the bath and eyes the bandage. She needs to peel it off to clean the wound but she feels like his skull might cave in if she touches it at all.

“I need to take the bandage off.”

“'kay,” he says, and rubs soap into his chest.

“Okay...” She lifts her hands to his head and grimaces. “Tell me if anything hurts.”

“'kay,” he repeats.

She takes a breath and starts peeling one edge; it comes away easily, revealing the circular incision beneath, skin held together with staples. Her stomach turns for a moment, but she takes another breath, picks up a flannel and turns the water back on.

“I'm going to run the flannel over your wound.”

“Uh huh.”

She nods to herself and starts washing his skin. His head doesn't feel squishy at all, which is nice, but she can feel the slightly raised staples in his skin and it makes her shudder. Bruce has finished scrubbing himself and is just running his fingers through the water slowly. She rinses out the flannel and picks up the bottle of antibacterial wash.

“This might sting a little.”

Bruce hums; she guesses he's run out of monosyllabic ways to say 'okay'. He makes a soft sound when she wipes the flannel over the incision, but makes no other complaints, and she finishes up a few minutes later and grabs a wad of toilet paper to dry his skin, then gets a new dressing from the sink and sticks it on.

“This is weird,” she says.

He laughs a little and nods. “Ve—ry weird.”

“Do you think you're up for sitting in the kitchen and having something to eat?”

He rubs at his face for a moment. “'m ti—ed but... real—ly hungry...”

“That's the steroids, probably.”

He looks up at her, frowning slightly. “St—roids?”

“Yeah, to stop any brain swelling. You didn't notice me giving them to you?”

He shakes his head slowly.

“Well, don't worry. Let's try the kitchen. It's okay if you fall asleep at the table.”

He smiles and nods. She helps him get dressed in new pyjamas and wraps her arm around his waist to lead him to the kitchen. Mom is in the living room and follows them into the kitchen as Jane sets Bruce up with a chair.

“How are you feeling, Bruce?” she asks.

He lets out a breath. “Weird.”

“That's normal,” Mom says.

Bruce nods slowly and Jane squeezes his shoulder before going to the fridge.

“Once the anaesthetic has worn off some more, you'll feel more... present.”

“Mmhm,” he murmurs. 

Jane hurriedly makes him a sandwich and brings it over to him. Bruce is staring vacantly at the table, and jerks when she puts the plate down in front of him. He starts eating it automatically, chewing laboriously until it's finished. His head starts to drop forward again and she lays her hand on his shoulder gently.

“Back to bed?”

He blinks a couple of times, then nods. “Uh huh.”

She's pretty sure he's asleep before she manages to ease him back down into bed. This routine keeps going for the next couple of days, although Mom helps out a lot, especially cleaning the wound. Jane just can't handle looking at those staples.

“I don't want to sound ungrateful,” Jane starts one day, as her and her mom sit and watch the news. There's a special report on a series of explosions on an island in Southeast Asia. Bruce stayed awake for twenty minutes before sacking out again. “But... don't you have to get back to work sometime?”

“I was going to talk to you about that,” she says. She picks up the remote and mutes the TV. “I've been thinking about moving back to the US. I've been talking with the head nurse at the hospital you and Bruce were at, she thinks there might be a job for me there.”

Jane blinks. “You're... moving back?”

“Don't worry, I'll get my own place. But this last year has made me reassess things. Everything that's happened to you, all this back and forth. I don't want to be a seven hour plane ride away from you.”

“We're not going to get kidnapped again, Mom,” Jane says. She hopes not, anyway. 

“It's not just the kidnapping,” she says. “I want to be here when things happen. When, maybe, you get married, for instance, I don't want to be an ocean away.”

Jane freezes. “Married? I'm not-- me and... we're not thinking about that. At all. At all.”

Mom smiles. Jane has always hated _that_ smile. “It's just an example,” she says.

-

It's seven days before Bruce can stay awake for more than thirty consecutive minutes. The incision site is healing quickly and nine days after the surgery, Jemma removes the staples. She uses a scissor looking contraption and Jane keeps her eyes fixed on Bruce's face as he sits on the couch. He wrinkles his nose at the first few staples to come out, but doesn't make any other moves. Jane probably reacts worst to it and she tries not show it as Bruce watches her.

“Gross?” he says.

“It's... okay,” she says, and tries to paste a smile on her face.

He laughs.

“Doesn't it hurt?”

“Nope. Hard head.”

“You do have a pretty hard head, that's true,” Jane says.

“Last one,” Jemma says, then a moment later. “All done.”

“How's it look?” he asks.

“It's healing very well and you're recovering very easily too.”

“How long till bone's healed?”

“Your skull? A few months, probably.”

He pulls a face.

“What?” Jane asks.

“Don't wanna wait that long,” he says.

“Wait for-- oh.”

“Hulk,” he confirms.

“Dr Banner, we don't know what the transformation will do before you're fully healed. I highly recommend that you don't attempt anything in the next few months.”

Bruce looks at his lap for a moment, then nods. “Okay.”

“Good,” Jemma says, and starts to collect up her things. “I'll come and check on you again in a few days, all right?”

“Right,” he says, and smiles.

Jane sees Jemma out again, then returns to the couch. Bruce is gnawing on his nails.

“Did you mean what you said to Jemma? About waiting?”

He looks up at her, then away again.

“Bruce?” she prompts.

“I don't think...” He drops his hand to his lap and clasps them together. “I can wait that long. It's... last few days, I can... feel him again. I don't think... he'll wait.”

“So it worked,” Jane says and sits down beside him.

“I think so. He's... there. I feel like, I feel...” He shakes his head. “Can't explain how...”

“Okay,” Jane says, and sighs. Three months or more does seem like a long time for Bruce to rein it in.

“He should... heal the--” Bruce gestures to the back of his head. “The... trans—for—mation should heal it. Not do... something bad.”

“Okay,” she repeats and rubs her hands over her face. She's not convinced that he's right. When he changes, he gets bigger, much bigger, and that includes the size of his head, as funny as that sounds. She doesn't know exactly how the process works, but somehow his bone structure changes and she has visions of his skull cracking open or something. “Can you wait one week? It would just... make me feel better to have more time after the surgery.”

Bruce screws up the corner of his mouth. “I can try.”

“Okay,” she says, and takes his hand.

“I'll be okay,” he says. “You don't have to worry about me.”

She laughs a little. “I don't think I'm ever going to stop worrying about you, Bruce.”

He smiles a little and looks back at his bitten down nails. “I'm hungry.”

-

Having Hulk back is strange. Over the last few days, the knowledge of another presence has slowly come over him, the feeling of no longer being alone. It's been a year since Bruce has felt him, a year of being alone in his head, a year of being normal; or, at least, normally disturbed. He feels more like himself than he has in months, even if there's not much discernible difference to anyone else.

Jane, for one, doesn't see the difference, or maybe doesn't see the significance. He's trying to hold out for a week like she wants, but it gets harder with every passing day. Hulk moves underneath his skin, twists and ripples, and Bruce has to stop and fight him every time. That dark, empty space inside him is gone, but now he has to control what fills it up.

They start making plans about what to do when he Hulks out, and where to do it. Tony volunteers his four thousand acres of land in the Adirondacks for the event; there are trees and lakes for Hulk to have fun in, and Bruce thinks that he, or they, will. In fact, Hulk is itching to be let out now; every night leading up to the Tuesday morning that they're going to make the drive up there, Bruce has to do deep breathing exercises to keep him at bay. This, Jane sees, and the worry is written all over her face. All she ever seems to do is worry about him.

She takes good care of him, helps him when he can't walk properly, makes him food, cleans his wound. She doesn't seem to get much out of it herself. He's scratched her, had meltdown after meltdown in front of her, broken up her relationship with Thor (which he was _happy_ about, how fucking selfish is that); he's the whole damn reason she got shot in the first place, the reason she was kidnapped, the reason she had to become like him. She got caught in his web of insanity and has never been able to find her way back out again. God, why didn't Hulk save them that night in the lab. Why didn't Bruce?

She sleeps straight-backed beside him most nights – he wonders if that's a holdover from all those months of being in pain – her arms on top of the covers. Her biceps are clearly outlined against her skin now. Her collarbone that was formerly pronounced has softened, and he can no longer see her ribs at all.

She's so beautiful and he's afraid to touch her. After months and months of pining after her, he's in bed with her and now he's scared of her. Maybe that's not the right word; he's not scared, _exactly_ , he just feels... nervous around her again, and so guilty. So goddamn guilty. The mixture makes Hulk even more insistent on coming out. Hulk doesn't respond well to complex emotions.

Liz moves into her new apartment the day before their trip, which is one weight off his shoulders. He feels minutely more relaxed without the continual fear of embarrassing himself. 

The morning of the trip, Jane packs up a small bag while he dresses in loose clothes.

“Picnic?” he says.

She smiles a little – what she's really packing is first aid stuff, he can see that. “It is supposed to be nice up there.”

Tony is driving the three of them up to the Adirondacks; it's a four hour drive but the other option is flying there in a helicopter, which Bruce nixes before Tony even finishes the thought. No one needs a flying Hulk.

“Does anyone live up there?” Jane asks after they've been driving for half an hour, Tony up front, the two of them in the back.

“Don't worry, I sent Anna on an extended spa vacation. She wasn't impressed.”

“Okay, that's good,” Jane says, and starts digging around in her bag. She pulls out a couple of chocolate bars and offers Bruce one. “Hungry?”

He smiles a little and takes it. “Thanks.”

They reach the edge of Tony's land at one thirty – edge being the operative word, since fields and mountains stretch out forever in front of them. They park in a cleared area with a helicopter nearby.

“That's for me and Jane to track you, don't worry,” Tony says. “We can't really drive any further, we'll have to hike for a bit.”

“No,” Bruce says quickly. Tony and Jane turn to look at him. “I mean... I should... go alone.”

“I don't know...” Tony says.

“Me and Bruce can go,” Jane says. “Anyway, you don't want to get too far from the helicopter.”

Tony mulls it over for a second before nodding. “Okay. You've got your cell on you, right?”

“Yeah. Will it get a signal up here?”

Tony smirks. “Oh baby, don't you know who you're talking to?”

Jane laughs and shakes her head. “Okay, okay, let's get moving.”

And just like that, it's decided, without any input from Bruce. He sets his jaw and gets out of the car.

“You pretty much just want to walk straight,” Tony says, gesturing towards the mountains.

“I think we can handle that,” Jane says, and smiles at Bruce. He nods and looks up at the sky. It's cold but bright and fresh. He likes it.

“Before you go, I've got to give you a little shot,” Tony says. 

Bruce looks up and frowns at him. He's already taken his steroids today that have made his cheeks puff up, what else is there?

“It's not that kind of shot,” Tony says. “It's to track Hulk once he goes frolicking in the foothills. It's, uh, basically like microchipping you.”

“Oh,” Bruce says, and smiles thinly. “Great.”

Tony pulls a face. “Yeah, sorry about that. It's removeable, at least. Once you're done, it'll just be a quick cut to get it back out.”

Bruce nods. “Fine. Do it.”

Tony glances at Jane for a second, then reaches into his bag and pulls out a bulky plastic needle. “It's probably going to hurt, I've got some anaesthetic with me.”

“Just do it,” he mutters.

“Oh—kay,” Tony says, raising an eyebrow, and pull on a glove. “It's going in your upper arm, can you roll your sleeve up?”

Bruce pulls his sleeve of his ratty sweater back and presents his arm to Tony, who quickly wipes his skin with iodine and presses the tip of the needle to Bruce's arm. He glances up at Bruce worriedly and Bruce makes a motion with his hand to hurry up. 

It does hurt, it goes all the way down to his subcutaneous tissue; he can feel as the little chip slides in. Tony presses a cotton ball to his arm as he extracts the needle, then blots the site for a moment and disposes of the cotton in a plastic bag. He pulls out his phone and taps on it, then nods.

“All set,” he says, “you're free to roam far and wide.”

Jane turns to Bruce and smiles shakily. “Okay, I guess we should start walking.”

Bruce nods and looks back at the sky again.

“Call me when, uh...” Tony murmurs, and Jane says that she will, then shoulders her bag and takes Bruce by the arm. 

Tony waves them off and they start walking, Jane drumming her fingers on Bruce's arm.

“How far do you want to go before...?”

He frowns. How far does he want to go? Ten feet? That doesn't sound right, that's only about double his height... Fifty? A hundred? He used to be able to measure distance, he knows he could, but he can't... he just can't get his head around it.

“How about a mile?” Jane says in a soft voice that tells him she's fully aware of this inadequacy. 

He nods, looking ahead. After a few minutes, Jane lets go of his arm and walks beside him silently. Her stride is far longer than was even before the shooting and he can tell that it's her who's slowing down to match him, rather than the other way round. Her short hair bounces a little as she walks, the bright, cold sun making it shine. Her nose and cheeks are pinked slightly from the cold but she's wearing only jeans and a light sweater; he can feel the heat coming off her. She's so healthy now, strong and vital and warm, why would she want to be bound to him any more? Before, she was... they were the _same_ , in a way. God, how fucking awful is it to think like that? It's okay for a _cripple_ to date a _retard_. 

But she'll want more; she'll want a man that she can talk to about work, the news, goddamn television programmes. She'll want a man who can read her favourite books, watch her favourite films, earn his own money, sign his own name, write her letters and emails, spend time with her friends that he's never met before, go out alone and buy her gifts for her birthday. She'll want a _man_.

Bruce hasn't been a man for a very long time.

The bright coldness is just cold now, biting at his skin, getting underneath his thin clothes. Jane looks at him as he starts to shiver, and takes his hand. Warmth spreads up his arm.

“When I--” he starts. Jane looks at him and he smacks his lips. “I don't want... When I change... don't want you to see.”

He can't even say nine fucking words in the right order.

Jane purses her lips but nods. “Okay, that's fair.”

“It's awful,” he adds. “It's... dis—gusting.”

“I'm not going to think it's disgusting.”

“You will,” he says. “You _will_.”

She frowns and squeezes his hand. “Do you not want to do this any more? Because we can just go back and tell Tony it's off--”

“No,” he says quickly. “No. Have to do it.”

“Okay,” she says softly, and falls silent again. They continue holding hands as they walk in the silence

He gets colder and colder as they walk, his heart beating faster and faster until it's hard to put one foot in front of the other. They start down a grassy slope and he concentrates so hard on the ground that his vision starts to blur, and a few feet from the flat ground, his heel slips and he stumbles down the slope. Jane grabs hold of his shoulders and pulls him back against her, steadying him. Her fingertips bite into his skin and he feels her chest warm against his back.

“You okay?”

“Uh huh,” he mutters, but his legs feel like jello and Jane switches to threading an arm underneath his armpits, holding him tight against her side as they walk down the rest of the slope. Not long ago, this would have been the other way around.

Once they reach flat ground again, he stops and takes a breath; Jane still holding onto him firmly. He can't go any further.

“Okay,” he says, “this is...” The clearing is fairly private and hopefully Hulk will go deeper into the forest rather than turn around and wreak destruction on Tony's car. “You... go.”

Jane purses her lips. “You're sure I can't stay?”

He nods, feeling so tired that he can't speak.

Jane bites her lip and nods, then pulls her arm away from him and takes hold of his shoulders to face him. “I know I haven't said it before, but you know I love you, right?”

He blinks heavily. “You... said it.”

“I did? When?”

“You... al—most sleep.”

“Oh,” she says, and smiles. “Well, I meant it. I'm just not good with romance stuff.”

He nods. “I love... you too.”

She smiles again and pulls him in to hug him. Her arms are firm and unyielding and Bruce sinks into them, pressing his face to her shoulder. She rubs his back and kisses his jaw, holding on for a long time before stepping back. He looks up at her and she smiles and kisses him hard on the mouth.

“Be careful, okay?” she says.

He smiles back. As if Hulk understands the concept of being 'careful'. He nods anyway and Jane kisses him again before moving to climb back up the slope.

“I'll see you in a couple of hours, okay?” she calls.

“Okay,” he says, and watches her as she leaves, willing his legs to stay upright. She waves at the top of the slope and he waves back, and then she disappears into the trees.

His knees go out from under him as soon as she's out of sight. It's a relief to be on the wet, cold grass and he slumps down, dropping his head to his knees.

The spasms start in his head, a sharp stabbing pain in the back of his skull, right where they cut into his bone. He digs his fingers into his sweatpants and sets his jaw. The stabbing pain comes again, coupled with a pulsing, like his brain is growing larger than his skull. Maybe it is. Maybe it _is_ , maybe his brain is going to explode out of his head, maybe his eyes will bleed like they did the first time this happened. Maybe this time he won't survive it.

His muscles start to swell slowly, tortuously against his clothes. For years and years it's been quick and dirty, an explosion of anger that changed him from the inside out in a matter of minutes. The first time, though; the first time was a descent into hell, molten lava in his veins that swelled and and tore at his skin, turned him inside out, turned his skin to rock.

This is the first time all over again.

The pain in his head is like an icicle being slammed into his head, over and over. He starts to scream and the sound of it amplifies the pain in his head.

The buttons of his shirt pop off, his skin is so tight it's going to tear to pieces, his tongue is too large for his mouth, his head is pounding to the rhythm of his blood, boiling away just below the surface. He screams and he cries and he brings up his breakfast as his back is set on fire and his skin burns and his brain freezes and is set alight over and over. He cries for his mom and for Jane and Betty and Susan and he doesn't want to be alone; he's scared, he's so scared.

He throws his head back as the lava surges through him and through his blurred vision he sees Jane standing by the trees, watching him. 

Hulk roars to life.

-

He wasn't wrong that it's disgusting. It is, and it looks like agony. It goes on and on, and when it's finally over, Hulk is hunched over in the clearing, his gaze vacant. She stays perfectly still, scared to move, as Hulk breathes steadily in and out. After a few minutes, his eyes flicker to one side and back again, and then a few seconds later move up to her face. His bright green eyes bore into her and the breath goes out of her all in a rush. It feels like something's tugging at the centre of her chest; she wants to approach him but she resists it. Hulk blinks and gets to his feet, his sweatpants overworked and clinging to his hips. He keeps staring at her for a few more minutes, the clearing silent except for the sound of his breathing and her own and the birds overhead. Then he turns and runs deeper into the forest.

She gets out her cellphone and dials Tony's number. He picks up on the first ring.

“I'm tracking him, he's on the move at alarmingly high speeds. I can be with you in a minute. Pick up?”

She opens her mouth and at first nothing comes out, long enough that Tony prompts her. “Jane?”

“Yeah,” she says raggedly. “Come get me.”

He lands in a the clearing a minute later and she stumbles down the slope again and into the helicopter. Tony looks at her and grimaces a little.

“You look like you've seen some things.”

She rubs her hand over her face and nods. Her skin is cold to the touch from the walking, but she's hot inside. Tony lifts off again and start tracking Bruce. There's a display in the middle of the dashboard that shows Bruce's movement and beside his dot it's showing how fast he's moving: 250 MPH and climbing.

“Candy?” Tony says, and holds out a Kit Kat. She smiles a little and takes it.

“Thanks.”

“No problem. So, uh, how are you doing with everything?”

She starts unwrapping the candy and looks at him. “You're going to have to be more specific than that, a lot has happened recently.”

Tony smiles. “Let's start with you being a She-Hulk.”

“She-Hulk?” she repeats. “That's kind of sexist.”

Tony laughs. “You know what I mean.”

She bites into the bar, chews, and swallows before answering. “Honestly? I love it, it feels great.”

“Yeah? No Hulking out when you're PMSing?”

She tips her head to the side. “Tony, I don't have a uterus...”

He flushes a little and laughs. “Right, right.”

She leans forward and lays a hand on his arm. “Do we need to talk about the birds and the bees?”

He laughs again and shakes his head. “Shut up.”

She smiles and leans back in her seat, returning to her candy bar for a moment. “But yeah, no Hulking out. I don't think that's going to happen... I hope not, anyway. I'm just stronger and I don't need as much sleep and I have an appetite and I'm not in pain any more.”

“I can see why you like it.”

“Yeah. I don't think Bruce likes it, though. I think, uh...” She doesn't really want to talk about her sex life with Tony but it's nice to able to tell someone about this. “I don't think he's attracted to me any more. Maybe it's the haircut,” she adds as an afterthought and laughs hollowly.

Tony looks at her out of the corner of his eye. “Yeah, right. There's no way he's not hot for you.”

She shrugs. “I don't know, he doesn't really like me touching him any more.”

Tony hums. “I really doubt it's because he's not attracted to you. It was fucking ridiculous the hours he spent mooning over you.”

“Yeah?”

“Honestly, it was sickening. He tried to pretend he wasn't completely smitten, but he used to talk about you all the time, about how great it was working with you, how smart you were, blah blah, and he did that whole doe-eyed thing every time he looked at you, which apparently you never noticed. You are really unobservant, Foster.” He looks at the display and hums. “Hulk's officially going faster than I can fly this helicopter.”

She smiles a little. It's not like she didn't notice _at all_ , she thought he had a small crush on her because he was always so kind and gentle towards her; but then again, it wasn't like he wasn't kind to everyone else, so she was never sure. She certainly never thought, back then, that it reached the heights of being 'smitten'. Even now it's hard to believe.

“So why's he so skittish around me now?”

“Maybe his masculinity is threatened, or his... Hulkulinity...” Tony glances at her. “I can see your muscles from here.”

She looks down at her arms; the curve of her biceps is noticeable through the thin material of her sweater. She's always had pale, bony, matchstick arms, so the change is something she still marvels at.

“Maybe,” she says. “Or maybe he's just so disgusted by Hulk that he can't bear to be with me any more. He wanted to change me back, get clean my blood of Hulk, but I told him no.”

Tony clicks his tongue and reaches over to pat her on the leg. “I'm sorry.”

“Yeah,” she murmurs.

“Bruce's psyche is a weird and wonderful place. It'll be okay.”

She rubs her hand over her face and looks out the window. “I hope so.”

-

Cold. Wet. Wa—ter? Feet. Feet. Wet. Cold.

Feet.

...his? Feet? His... Him... He...

Fast. Run, run, run. Good.

He's... good. He. He. Hulk. 

Re—member. Remember water. Remember... Daddy. 

Bobby. He. Hulk. Hulk... protect. Hulk strong. Bobby... gentle. Didn't protect... bad men... Jane...

Jane, Jane, Jane.

Blue. Cold. Remember... bang. Smash. Smash, smash, smash.

Cur—se. Curse. Not curse. Hulk not curse.

Hulk not a curse.

-

“He's stopped moving,” Tony says.

Jane rouses from her half-slumber and looks out the window. They've been following him for hours. “What?”

Tony taps on the display for a moment. “Look.”

She looks down at the display, which is now showing video of Hulk standing near a lake, utterly still, seemingly transfixed by the ducks on the water.

“How long's he been standing there for?”

“About ten minutes,” Tony says. “I think he might be done.”

Jane stares at Hulk for a minute, how his enormous chest rises and falls and his muscles slide underneath his skin. “Take me down.”

“You sure? He was pretty wild before.” 

“It'll be fine,” she says.

Tony doesn't look so sure, but he nods and pulls off to the side. There isn't room to land anywhere other than the clearing Hulk is in, and since that might freak him out, Tony throws out a rope ladder for her.

“You going to be okay with that?” he says. They're about twenty feet off the ground.

“Yeah, I'll be fine,” she says, and retrieves her bag from under the dashboard. “I've got my phone, I'll call you if I need you.”

Tony grimaces a little, then nods. She shoulders the bag and starts easing herself out of the helicopter door. The ladder feels very flimsy when she puts her foot on the top rung, but she keeps going, throwing her bag to the ground when she gets halfway. She looks down at the bag, then takes a breath and lets go of the ladder, jumping down after it. She lands on her feet and takes a second to make sure that nothing's broken. It was a stupid risk to take, but she feels fine, and looks back up at the helicopter as Tony yells, 'show off!' and starts ascending again.

She grins, picks up her bag, and heads in the direction of Hulk. It's a short walk to clear the trees, and she comes into the clearing with Hulk's back facing her. She's quiet for a moment, but Hulk senses her presence and turns to her. His eyes are just as green as before, and her chest constricts again, that feeling in her gut like there's a piece of string tied around her middle, being pulled hard.

Hulk blinks twice and opens his mouth, but doesn't make a sound. She takes a couple of steps forward and he doesn't flinch, so she keeps going.

Hulk shuffles his feet and looks away as she gets within touching distance, then turns and looks back at the lake. There are a dozen ducks milling around on the water, totally unconcerned about Hulk standing five feet away. He sits down at the edge of the lake, dipping his feet into the water, and keeps looking at the ducks.

She drops her bag to the ground and sits down cross-legged beside him. He glances at her out of the corner of his eye, then looks back at the lake.

“You like ducks?” she asks.

He glances at her again. “Mm,” he rumbles.

She laughs and clasps her hands in her lap.

Hulk looks at her, furrowing his heavy brow, then runs his fingers through the water. One of the ducks swims closer and Hulk goes completely still, gaze fixed on the animal as it pecks at the water. It dunks its head under the water, tipping its butt up in the air, and Hulk grins. Jane laughs again.

“I would have brought birdseed if I'd known,” she says.

Hulk lifts his hand from the water and stares at it. He seems fascinated by it in a vacant sort of way, like Bruce was when he first came out of his coma. Jemma said that there was the possibility that changing into Hulk might cause further brain damage, and if Hulk is behaving the same way Bruce was, does that mean that when he turns back, Bruce is going to have lost all the progress he's made? The thought of it sends chills down her spine.

Hulk looks up at the sky, where Tony is circling overhead, and points at the helicopter.

“That's Tony up there,” she says. Hulk looks at her and blinks, his thick eyelashes touching his cheeks for a moment. “Remember Tony? Can you say Tony? To—ny?”

Hulk keeps looking at her, opening his mouth slightly. His lips twitch and his jaw moves, but no sound comes out. His brow furrows and his lower lip pushes out as his breathing increases.

“It's okay,” she says, and touches his arm. “It's okay, it doesn't matter.”

He huffs and growls under his breath, and closes his hand to a fist and bangs it against his forehead. He's just like Bruce...

“Hey, it doesn't matter,” Jane says again, reaching up and wrapping her palm around his fist. He lets it drop back to his lap. “Did you have fun in the forest?”

He blinks again, then nods. 

“That's good. Are you going to... go back?”

He purses his mouth into an 'o' shape, his enormous Adam's apple bobbing as he tries to speak again. He makes a noise that sounds like, 'nghhh', but she thinks he means to say 'no'.

“Okay, good, then we can spend some more time together.”

She swears that he blushes, his cheeks turning a darker green. She puts her hand back on his leg and squeezes. “Do you remember what happened to Bruce?”

Hulk moves his jaw from side to side. “B.. b... ang...”

“Bang,” she echoes, “yeah.”

He points a finger at her stomach. “Bang.”

She leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “Yeah, that too.”

He pouts. “Me...”

“You?” Jane repeats.

“Me... not help... bang...” he mutters, hunching his shoulders in.

She frowns. “You didn't... help? You mean, you didn't stop... them from shooting us?”

He looks away, still pouting.

“Bru— Hulk, they, the men that shot us, they told... Bruce that they'd kill me if... you came out. He controlled it because of me, _for_ me.”

Hulk looks at her for a long moment, his green eyes fixed on her, and the string tugs at her chest again.

“Fe—el...” he murmurs, and frowns. “Feel...” He bangs his knuckles against his head.

“Your head feels weird?”

He rumbles again and looks back at the ducks.

“I know it does,” she says. “It'll be okay. I'll look after you.”

He drops his head and glances at her for a long moment before closing his eyes. The change back is gradual; his skin loses its green, his arms and legs shrink, his spine becomes more prominent against his curved back, his jaw turns softer, and then finally he's Bruce again, hunched over, looking smaller than ever.

“Bruce?” she says, lays a hand on his back. His skin is hot, like he's running a fever. He doesn't react to her.

She curls her arm around his shoulders and pulls him towards her; he flops over bonelessly, his chin falling to his chest. She looks down at the top of his head – the brain surgery scar has disappeared – and rubs his back.

“Bruce? Bruce, can you wake up for a minute?” She gives him a slight shake and he grunts softly. “Bruce, open your eyes.”

She pushes him upright and cups her hand around the back of his head to look at him. She can see his eyes moving under his eyelids and his eyelashes are fluttering, his breathing laboured and jumpy. She touches his cheek and his eyelids flutter some more.

“Bruce, please open your eyes.”

Slowly, with some more coaxing, his eyes open. His pupils are constricted to pinpoints and his gaze is vacant. If Jemma's fears were correct... The thought of it grips Jane again, turning her cold.

“Bruce,” she says again. “Look at me. Look at me, okay?”

Bruce blinks, but nothing more.

“Please, Bruce, come on. Follow my finger, okay?” She lifts her hand and holds her index finger up in front of his eyes. She moves it from side to side, passing over Bruce's still vacant gaze several times before dropping her hand again. 

Her eyes start to warm with tears and wipes at her face for a moment. When she looks up again, he's looking back at her.

“Bruce?”

He blinks again, his eyes flickering to her mouth and then up to her forehead. He opens his mouth and makes a soft sound.

“J...J...” He falls silent again, his eyebrows scrunching together.

She leans forward and kisses him on the forehead. “That's good,” she whispers. “Really good.”

Her phone starts to ring in her pocket and she pulls back. Bruce's eyes slide shut again and she pulls him further into her side as she answers the call.

“Time to go home?” Tony asks.

“I think so, yeah.”

-

Dark. It's dark. Very dark. 

Where is he?

Who is he?

He's in a bed. His bed; it's warm and soft, and the person beside him... Jane... she's warm too. Not soft, she's all hard edges and tough skin now, but still warm. Warmer than ever, since Hulk.

Hulk.

He sits up straight, his back protesting sharply, yet the pain is distant, cushioned by... something. An intangible layer wrapped around him. Hulk's embrace. He looks down at his hands, which are still obscured by darkness, and tries to think.

The covers rustle and Jane sits up.

“Bruce?” she says, and her warm hand finds its way to his arm. “How are you feeling?”

“Mm...”

She leans back and switches on the lamp, bathing the room in a sudden light that stings his eyes. He hasn't been in the light in years, it feels like.

“I'm sorry! Do you want me to turn it off?”

He shakes his head, his eyes unfocusing. “Mm... no, 'sokay.”

“Okay,” Jane murmurs, and ducks her head a little to look at him. “Hey, how are you feeling?”

He rubs the heel of his hand into his brow and closes his eyes, casting his mind out to see how he's feeling, searching for that constant dark presence inside him.

It's not there; or at least, it's different. It's controlled, tethered, guarded by Hulk. He smiles a little.

“Feel... okay,” he says.

“Yeah? You remember everything with Hulk and the surgery, you don't feel too jumbled?”

“No more than usual,” he says slowly, and smiles again. The change didn't cure him of his new problems, only his old ones, but it didn't make him any worse, either, and that's a win these days.

Jane smiles widely, her eyes widening with happiness, and she scoots forward, opening her arms to hug him. He shifts closer, letting her envelope him with her strong arms, letting her hold him firm. He turns his face into her shoulder, his nose pressing against the hollow of her collarbone, and takes a breath. It feels good to be like this, safe. Hulk likes it too, Bruce can feel him bleeding off any last anxiety he has about Jane's change.

Jane rubs her hand up his back and pulls away to look at him. She's so beautiful, her short hair framing her face, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. He leans in, lifting his hand to her face, and her eyes flicker to his mouth as he gets closer and closer, until he cups his hand around the back of her head and kisses her. She sighs through her nose and rests one of her warm hands on his side, shifting closer. He lifts his other hand and traces his fingers over her jaw and then up, splaying his fingers so that his thumb is resting on her cheekbone and his fingertips are brushing against the hair at her temple. She tips her head and deepens the kiss, curling her tongue around his.

He loses track for a while after that, her hands roaming all over him. He hasn't been touched like this in so long; even when they got as close as they've ever come to having sex she didn't touch him like this. He did all the touching, really, and he loved that but this is something else. Being touched all over, having her hands up his shirt, her fingernails trailing against his skin... It's like being awake for the first time in _years_.

She tugs at his t-shirt until it comes off over his head. He leans in, pressing her to the mattress for a minute before she hooks her leg around his and rolls them over. She straddles his waist and puts both her hands on his shoulders.

“You can go on top next time,” she says, grinning.

He takes a breath. “Okay.”

She rewards him with a kiss, and then another and another coupled with her hands on his chest and his stomach and then his pants, dragging them down over his thighs. He rolls his hips up belatedly and she pushes back down against him, his erection pressing tight against her leg.

He groans, jerking his hips up again, and she laughs and kisses him, runs her soft lips across his cheek to his ear. He shudders and gropes at her back, dragging her t-shirt up with his remarkably uncoordinated hands, and she rears back and pulls it off over her head in one smooth movement. Her scars stand proud against her skin like the roads on a map and he presses his hand to her side without thinking, touches the raised, puckered skin with his thumb. Jane takes in a deep breath, just short of a gasp.

“Okay?” he says.

She worries her lip for a second, looking down at him, and from his position beneath her she looks like a giant. “Yeah, I'm okay,” she says and smiles again. She hooks her thumbs around the waistband of her pants and pulls them down, then follows with her underwear, letting both pool to her knees.

She leans back over him, far enough that he has to tip his head back to keep eye contact with her, and places one hand flat on the mattress beside his head. They stare at each other for moment before she ducks back down and kisses him, slow and lingering, letting it get messy. He runs his fingers up her inner thigh and feels the shudders in their wake; she pushes into him harder, panting slightly. He keeps going, running his fingers up to the crease of her leg and she makes a soft sound, pressing her lips to the corner of his mouth. He keeps going, pressing his fingers into her, and she slips forward with a moan, grinding down against his hand.

“Bruce,” she groans, and closes one hand around his shoulder.

He presses harder, crooking his fingers, and she pants and groans louder, rolling her hips down again. His dick is pressed tight against her leg and it throbs in time with his heartbeat, which is climbing steadily. He puts the thought of that aside and rubs his thumb against her clit.

“Oh God,” she moans, with a growl underlying her voice that makes his blood hot. She drops her head forward, placing her other hand on the mattress, and rocks into his fingers, her breath turning thin and high-pitched, higher and higher until she clenches around his fingers and he feels a ripple go through her. Her hand tightens around his shoulder, her fingertips biting into his skin, and she comes with her eyes squeezed shut and her mouth half open.

He watches her, rolling his thumb over her clit slowly as she rides out the orgasm, and wills himself not to jerk his hips up again.

“Oh, Bruce,” she groans after a few minutes and opens her eyes. She has a lazy look on her face, like she doesn't have a care in the world, and leans down to kiss him again. He closes his eyes, letting his fingers slide to her thigh, and moves his lips slowly over hers. After a few minutes, she moves down to his jaw and presses kisses along it, then down to his neck.

“Uhn,” he mumbles as she drags her teeth over his pulse.

“You remember when we did this last time?” Jane murmurs against his skin.

He doesn't reply for a moment, too caught up in her lips trailing down his neck. She laughs, her breath warm on his damp skin, and he swallows and opens his mouth to speak. “Uh huh,” is what he manages to get out.

“It was so fucking erotic,” she murmurs, pressing her mouth to his collarbone. “You really made me feel beautiful when I felt... ugly.”

“You weren't...” he starts, but trails off when she drags her mouth down his chest. He presses his head back against the pillows and groans. 

Jane laughs again and goes lower, her hair brushing against his hip bone. She lingers there for a moment before leaning in closer and running her tongue along his dick.

“Fuck!” he shouts, fisting his fingers in the sheets and curling his toes. Jane presses her mouth to his thigh and rubs a hand up his side. “Ugh, don't... stop,” he groans.

“Be patient,” she murmurs and sits up on her knees to kiss his side. He groans again and tries to do as he's told, but it's too hard – pun intended. He rolls his hips again and sinks his teeth into his lip to muffle himself.

Jane drags her hand over his stomach and moves up to his neck, brushing her lips up to his ear. He shudders and tips his head towards her, mouthing blindly in the direction of her cheek. She laughs again and presses forward, closing her lips over his, kissing him hard and deep for a moment, then straddles him again. She pushes him down into the mattress as she goes back to kissing him; he thinks she could press him clean through it if she wanted to, but he knows that she won't.

She pulls back after a minute and nuzzles his ear. “Okay, I'll stop torturing you.” She reaches down and wraps her hand around his dick. He rolls his hips as she jerks him a couple of times, then opens his eyes as she lets go. She smiles down at him as she pushes herself up and lowers herself onto him. Her eyes slide shut and she bites her lip; she looks so happy, so radiant, and he can't help but jerk his hips up, sliding in the rest of the way. It feels amazing, and maybe that's just because it's been so long since he's done this, but he thinks it's her; it's Jane's muscles bearing down on him, her hot hands flat on chest, her mouth dropping open as she moves above him. She's slow at first, a constant slow roll of her hips against his, but after a minute she speeds up, and his heartbeat rushes to match.

He presses his head back against the pillow and savours the sparks running up and down his legs and the knot in his stomach and the little noises Jane is making. And then a thought wanders across his mind, a thought about Hulk; he came to the conclusion, after his encounter with Betty a few years back, that an elevated heartbeat wasn't the true cause of the change and that sex wouldn't be a danger as long as he was happily consenting to it, but he's never tested that out beyond jerking himself raw a couple of times. 

He opens his mouth and lifts his head to say something; Jane opens her eyes at the same time and for a second he swears... her irises are ringed green. It takes the breath out of his lungs and sends a thrill down his spine. Then she blinks and it's gone, and so is whatever he was going to say. He rolls his head back against the pillow and gets washed away in the steady rhythm of her, her fingers digging, almost kneading his skin. 

Her pace quickens as her breath gets louder, laced with soft growls on the exhale. Her hips snap against his faster and faster, almost punishing if it weren't so good. One more thrust and he's gone, arching his back and fisting the covers beneath him in his fists. His orgasm slams through him, so intense that he drifts away from himself for a moment, his head padded with cotton, stuffing his ears up. Jane tightens up around him, almost too tight, and yells as she comes, her fingers pressing so hard into his skin that they're going to leave welts. Bruce would smile at the prospect if he had control over his muscles right now.

His ears buzz as he comes back down from it, a pleasant buzz that makes his head feel light, unlike the ever present tinnitus that he's long since got used to. He can hear the muffled sound of Jane panting above him and when he opens his eyes to slits, he sees her chest rising and falling, her breasts lifting with each breath, her chest pink all the way down.

She smiles and lifts off him carefully. She leans over him and plucks a few tissues from a box on the night stand and starts cleaning them up. She spends a few minutes at that, as Bruce drifts, tiredness creeping in, his mind calm and settled. The mattress moves a little underneath him as Jane scoots down beside him. She rolls over onto her side and props her head in her hand. Bruce turns his head to the side and looks at her.

“That,” she says, “was a long time coming.”

Bruce feels warm all over, his body and his mind loose and relaxed. He can't pull together any words to answer but it's okay; that's okay. He smiles and Jane smiles back, wrapping an arm around his chest just a little too tight. He closes his eyes and breathes out.

-

_One year later_

“Good morning, Dr Banner, this is your nine thirty am wake up call,” JARVIS says cheerfully. “Today's weather will have an estimated high of forty five degrees and a low of thirty one. Humidity will be an average of forty three percent.”

Bruce pulls the sheets away from his face and sighs. “Thanks.”

“Quite all right, Dr Banner,” JARVIS says.

Bruce rubs the back of his hand across his eyes and drags himself up. Sunlight is streaming through the windows as JARVIS fades the opacity out and when Bruce scoots to the side and puts his feet on the ground, the floor is already warming. 

He shuffles to the bathroom and splashes some water on his face before reaching for his purple toothbrush and doing his teeth. He spends a few minutes on that, scrubbing the brush over both rows three times and then rinsing his mouth out with his blue mouthwash.

He tugs his t-shirt off and pulls off his pants to step into the shower. Unlike normal people showers, Stark showers are calibrated to always come out at the temperature you want it and never blast you with cold water, and the hot water runs down his back, soothing his stiff muscles. He scrubs himself with body wash that smells lemon-y and shampoos his hair from a green bottle that he thinks might actually be Jane's.

He gets out of the shower, wraps his yellow towel around his waist and tracks wet footprints into the kitchen. His laptop is sitting on the kitchen table where he left it and he switches it on as he passes on the way to the fridge. He gets a carton of milk out and retrieves a bowl from the cupboard to make cereal. Kellogs is his brand of choice these days, since even he can't fail to understand what the big red letter on the box is. He shakes some of the cereal into a bowl and pours the milk in, which comes up short and leaves him with a shallow pool of milk and too many flakes.

“Damn,” he murmurs, and tosses the carton in the trash.

He takes the bowl back to the kitchen table and sits down. He opens up the browser with his right hand and eats the cereal with his left.

“Open emails,” he says, and the site begins to load in the browser. Tony calls his custom voice-activated laptop 'Jarvi', like Siri, only better. Bruce does not call it that.

“Read out sender names.”

“Four emails,” the voice not unlike JARVIS's says, “from: Culver Alumni Services, Susan Drake, Amazon, and Ebay.”

“Read out Susan's email,” he says around a mouthful of cereal.

“'Dear Bruce,'” the computer says, “'I just wanted to check in and see how you are. Tony told me that your speech therapy has been going really well; I'm so proud of you. I'm hoping to come up to New York in the next couple of weeks, maybe we can spend some time together – I still haven't seen all the sights! Love, Susan.'”

Bruce smiles. “Remind me to reply later. Close emails.” The emails disappear and Bruce closes the lid of the laptop, then shovels in what's left of the cereal into his mouth and gets up. He deposits the bowl in the sink and heads back to the bedroom to get dressed. He dresses in jeans and a t-shirt and comes back out to the living room to search for his wallet. It only takes three passes around the room before he locates it under a couch cushion. He heads to the door, slips his shoes on, and grabs his keycard and coat.

“See you later, JARVIS,” he says, twisting the door handle.

“Have a safe trip, Dr Banner,” JARVIS replies.

Bruce snorts and closes the door behind him as he shrugs his coat on.

To get to the grocery store, he turns right, walks three blocks, then turns left and walks another three blocks. For some reason the place seems to exclusively play eighties music, which he hums under his breath as he wanders around the store with his little basket. He picks up the milk, hoping it's three percent and not that disgusting watery stuff he got a few weeks ago, then walks over to the bakery and picks up some bread and a couple of bagels. There's a lady handing out free samples of what looks like little pieces of cheese. He takes one with a smile and heads over to the cash register.

That was not cheese.

By the cash registers, there's a big display of heart-shaped boxes that he guesses are old Valentine's chocolate. He's pretty sure they're discounted, since there's a big yellow sticker on the front of them and it's March. He picks a box up and tosses it on the belt.

“Hi, how are you?” the cashier says.

“I'm good, how are you?” he says by rote.

“I'm great, thanks,” she says, her gaze already slipping off him. “Do you need a bag?”

“Uh...” Damn, he should have brought one with him. There are dozens of them in the apartment. “Yeah... sorry.”

“No problem. That'll be $11.39, how would you like to pay?”

He pulls his wallet out of his pocket. “Debit.”

“Sure thing. Our pin pad isn't working at the moment, so you'll have to sign, is that okay?”

“Uh, sure,” he says, pulling the card out of the right hand pocket. Debit always goes on the right, credit on the left.

She holds her hand out for his card and he hands it over. She swipes it and the till starts printing off a receipt. It's a shame the PIN pad isn't working, because Bruce is actually good at those things now. Numbers have come back to him a bit, much more easily than letters. He can't read the long number on his cards, but the nine digits in rows of three are no problem for him any more. And he likes paying by card, it makes him feel much more independent than being given a wad of cash as allowance.

“Here you go,” the cashier says, and hands him the receipt and a pen. He takes it in his left hand and twists his hand around to sign it on tiny platform the card reader is on. His signature now is what can be discerned as a 'B' followed by a squiggle of variable shapes. The good thing about signatures, though, is that no one questions how crappy they look.

He hands the pen and receipt back and she gives him the plastic and his copy of the receipt in return, without even comparing the signature to the one on his card. He remembers when he was younger cashiers being amateur handwriting experts. Back in his day...

He smiles and exchanges some more distant pleasantries with her before leaving. The air is cold but the sun is bright this morning and he squints against it as he starts walking back to the tower. Left, three blocks, right, three blocks, and home.

He lets himself back in with his keycard and gets into the private elevator. His ears block up immediately as the elevator car shoots up towards the roof and pop as soon as he steps out.

“Ow,” he murmurs, moving his jaw from side to side. He's never going to get used to that. He swipes his card again when he gets to his apartment door and lets himself in. He puts the bag down on the floor, toes his shoes off, and starts taking his coat off.

“You're back!” Jane says from the kitchen door, and runs over to him.

He grins. “You're home!” He wasn't expecting her until tomorrow. The apartment's looking a bit worst for wear...

Jane throws her arms around him and squeezes him hard. He feels his feet come off the ground for a few seconds before Jane puts him back down.

“Sorry,” she says, pulling back, her cheeks turning pink.

He grins again and pulls her back in, kissing her. As much as he likes to think he's more enlightened than most, he did feel emasculated by her strength at first. But that passed, mostly, and now he enjoys being manhandled sometimes.

They kiss for a few minutes, it feels like, before Jane rubs her palm up the side of his neck and looks at him. “I missed you.”

“I missed you more.”

“It's not a competition, Bruce,” she says, smiling a little.

He shrugs. “I still missed you more.”

“Fine,” she says, rolling her eyes. “What did you get?”

“Get?” he repeats, and she gestures to the bag on the floor. “Oh. Uh, milk and bread and ba—gels and...” He picks up the bag and looks through it. He pulls out the heart-shaped box. “Chocolates.”

“Oh, gimme,” she says, grabbing it out of his hands.

He laughs and starts walking to the kitchen. Jane follows and hops up onto the counter before picking through the box.

Bruce opens up the fridge and starts putting things away.

“Ugh, marzipan,” Jane murmurs and spits the chocolate back into its wrapper.

“That's gross,” he says, shutting the fridge door.

“Marzipan is worse.”

“Read the thing,” he says, gesturing to the box. “Since you _can_.”

Jane clicks her tongue and starts sucking the chocolate off the offending marzipan chocolate. Bruce screws up his face.

“It's still chocolate,” she says. “So, how was everything while I was away?”

“It was fine,” he says. They spoke every day on the phone, so it's like they didn't know how the other was doing. “How was the conference?” A two week conference selling the gamma radiation clean water technology that they've been working on and writing papers about (Jane writes, Bruce 'dictates').

“Fun, then boring, then fun, then boring again. Everyone wanted to talk to Tony, no one wanted to talk to me, unless they were drunk and I was the only girl in the vicinity.”

“Mm,” he murmurs, frowning.

“Don't worry, I could take them. By the way, Tony says we all have to go out to dinner tonight, once he's slept off some the jetlag.”

“Aren't you jetlagged?”

She smiles and pops another chocolate in her mouth. “Nope. Hulk power. Tony slept on the plane but he's just getting old.”

“Hey, I'm older than Tony.”

“You don't look a day over forty seven. Or... almost exactly three months over forty seven.”

“Ugh, don't remind me,” he mutters. His biggest milestone since turning forty seven is doing his own grocery shopping.

Jane reaches out and pulls him in. “You're only has old as you feel,” she says, smoothing her palms down his neck. “Let's go have sex.”

He wraps his hands around her waist and pulls her off the counter. “That's real reason you missed me,” he says as she wraps her legs around his waist.

“Well, you missed me _more_ , right?”

He grins. “A lot more.”

-

Pepper secures a reservation at some fancy steakhouse, because Tony wants 'good American food after all that German stuff'.

“You mean a bloody steak instead of a bloody sausage?” Jane asks on the ride over.

“At least we're not eating _English_ food,” Tony says over the back of the driver's seat. He doesn't have a driver any more, unless it's Happy, who splits his time between Malibu and New York.

Jane sighs and leans back in her seat.

“You pretended to be English with every English person we met!” Tony says.

“I wasn't pretending, it just comes out,” Jane says, laughing a little. 

Bruce smiles along. He wishes he could have been there, sharing in the jokes. They considered it but it was going to be a high energy two weeks, talking to people and giving lectures, and although nobody said it, they didn't have time to babysit him.

Maybe next time he'll be up to it.

They enter the restaurant through the back door, walking through the kitchen and onto the main floor. The lighting is low and there's music playing that's on the cusp of too loud. People are talking all around them, their voices rising and falling, interspersed with high-pitched laughter.

“We can get a private room,” Tony says.

Bruce shakes his head as Jane puts her arm around him. “It's fine.”

A waiter shows them to a table in the corner of the room, a little set back from everyone else, and hands out the menus. “Can I start you with some drinks?”

“I'll have a white wine, thanks,” Pepper says.

“Lemonade for me, the fancy stuff,” Tony says, and rolls his eyes when they all stare at him. “I'm the designated driver, remember?”

“I'll have a white too,” Jane says.

The waiter turns to Bruce with a smile. “And for you, sir?”

“Uh, I'll have a white wine as well, thanks,” he says.

“Three white wines and a lemonade,” the waiter says with a wide smile. “Okay, I'll be back with those shortly.”

When he leaves, Tony raises his eyebrows at Bruce.

“I can have one,” he says. He's been tapering down the dosage of his anti-psychotics for months now, from thirty mg to ten because the doctor felt he was showing so much improvement. He has improved, Hulk has alleviated a lot of his symptoms. Hulk helps with his most intense self-destructive tendencies and his intense anger, things that the medication never really touched, but Bruce still has those lows that are hard to climb out of, he still doesn't behave like other people. Hulk hasn't cured him. 

It feels great being on a lower dose, though, after the dizziness and nausea abated. He's managed to lose fifteen of the thirty pounds he put on, he doesn't feel nearly as tired as he used to, he can even mostly get up while it's still morning.

“Uh huh,” Tony murmurs.

Jane clicks her tongue and pats Bruce's hand under the table. The waiter comes back a few minutes later with the drinks and pulls out his pad to take their orders. He goes around the table, Pepper, Tony, Jane, and then Bruce. 

Bruce glances down at the menu laid out on the table in front of him for a second. “Can I get the... lamb chops? Thanks.”

The waiter smiles his wide smile again and collects up the menus. Jane presses her fingers to Bruce's leg. The words on the menu made as little sense to him as ever, but the restaurant had a website with the menu listed and his computer read out the items. Thank God for technology.

“So, what kind of trouble did you two get up to in Germany?” Pepper asks.

Tony pulls a face. “Why do you think we got in trouble?” 

“Because I know you and Jane isn't much better.”

“Hey!” Jane says, and Bruce laughs.

Pepper clicks her tongue. “You're just as bad as these two,” she says to him, gesturing between Jane and Tony.

“That's... not true,” he mumbles and takes a sip of his wine.

“We went to a lot of lectures,” Jane says. “Most of them weren't... that good.”

“They were crap,” Tony supplies. “Scientifically unsound, bad at public speaking. Painful.”

“Most of the guys thought I was Tony's 'new girl',” Jane says.

Tony laughs. “It was funny when you told them how many papers you've published.”

The waiter returns a few minutes later with some bread rolls and a dish of butter and Bruce and Jane both reach for the plate. 

“I'll fight you for it,” he says.

“You'll lose,” she says, and she's right. She's not as strong as Steve or Hulk, but she's far stronger than the average woman and far stronger than Bruce himself. She can pick him up and hold him down without breaking a sweat.

“Share?” he says.

Jane sighs expansively. “I guess we'll have to,” she says, and smiles at him. “Do you guys want some?” she asks Tony and Pepper.

Tony shakes his head. “Apparently you two need it more.”

The main course doesn't come out too long afterwards – Bruce has a feeling that the restaurant has a whole separate set of staff just to serve their table – and the waiter deposits his plate of lamb chops in front of him, his smile just as wide as ever.

“Thank you,” he says, and smooths the napkin out over his lap. He's been provided with a fork and a sharp knife which he picks up carefully. His fingers automatically clench around the handles and he has to will himself to loosen them up enough to hold them properly.

He has trouble piercing the lamb with the fork and chases it around the plate for a minute. He can feel Jane watching, ready to jump in and do it for him. He glances over and smiles before making one last stab. That does it and he cuts the lamb into slices quickly before abandoning the knife and using the fork on its own.

They talk about the conference and what happened while Jane and Tony were away (lots for Pepper, almost nothing for Bruce), and Bruce speaks a little. His speech is more fluid now, he can talk for a couple of minutes before getting tripped up if he's with the right person. Even speaking to strangers is okay in moderation. The only person he can't talk to is Thor; around him he becomes almost entirely incoherent. Thankfully Thor hasn't been around in a couple of months.

They get dessert after and Jane complains about how small her slice of cake is until Bruce pushes his bowl of ice cream over for them to share. He finishes his one glass of wine and switches to water, already feeling a little tipsy.

A new waiter comes over, nowhere near as smiley as the last. “Your waiter just went on his break, I'm filling in for him. Would anyone like a coffee?”

Tony looks around the table. “I think we're good. Just the bill, please.”

“Sure,” the guy says, and starts collecting the plates. He goes around the table, reaching Bruce last, and balances his bowl on top of all the rest. A spoon falls and he stoops next to Bruce's chair to pick it up.

“You will comply,” he murmurs.

Bruce turns his head and looks down at him. “Sorry?”

The guy looks up at him, his face hardened. “You will comply,” he says slowly.

Bruce frowns. “Uh...”

“Bruce?” Jane says, touching his hand. He looks back at her, still frowning. “You okay?”

“The waiter said, uh, 'You will comply'...” He turns to look back at the waiter, who has abandoned the dishes and is running across the length of the restaurant. “Uh...”

“Okay, time to go,” Tony says, jumping up from his seat.

Jane gets up too, grabbing hold of Bruce's arm. Her fingers dig into his skin and when he scrambles out his seat, she switches to putting her arm around his waist.

The first waiter comes back, all smiles. “Hey, can I get you guys the b...” His smile falters as he sees the dishes on the ground. “Is everything okay?”

“Charge my account,” Tony says, “give yourself whatever tip you want. Back door's this way, right?” he finishes, pointing towards the back of the restaurant.

“Yes, sir...” the waiter says slowly.

“Great,” Tony says and starts walking fast. Pepper keeps up stride for stride, which is amazing in the heels she's wearing. Jane pushes Bruce along and it finally starts to dawn on him.

“HYDRA?” he murmurs.

Jane grimaces. “Well, he definitely wasn't a waiter.”

They hurry out to the car and both Tony and Pepper start running their phones along the length of it.

“What are you doing?” Bruce asks.

“Scanning the car for anything that shouldn't be there,” Tony says and lays down on the ground, sticking his hand underneath the car to scan there.

“There really is an app for everything,” Jane says with a strained laugh. She has her arm pulled very tight around Bruce. His heart starts to beat faster.

“Everything's good here,” Tony says. “Pep?”

“It's clear,” she says.

“Come on,” Tony says, unlocking the car. 

Jane hurries Bruce in and the doors lock up tight around them. Tony reverses the car out of the parking spot and peels out onto the road. There's no way they're within the speed limit.

Tony taps the dashboard. “JARVIS, call SHIELD, get them out to the tower right now.”

“Yes, sir,” JARVIS says shortly.

“What do you think wanted?” Bruce says, then shakes his head. His hands are starting to quiver. “They wanted?”

“I don't know, but it sure sounded creepy,” Tony says.

Jane turns and looks over the back seat, one hand gripping Bruce's. “Tony...” she says. “Is that car following us?”

Bruce looks over his shoulder as Tony mutters, “Shit!” The car behind them is matching them for speed, weaving between other cars on the road. Tony veers sharply to the left, dodging oncoming cars; the car behind follows. “Fuck!”

“Maybe it's the cops?” Jane says.

Tony merges back into the right lane and shouts, “J! Any cops following us?”

“A cursory look at the police scanners suggests not, sir,” JARVIS says.

“Honey, take the wheel,” Tony says and opens up the glovebox. Pepper reaches across and holds onto the edge of the wheel while Tony pulls out what looks like one of his suit's gauntlets. He puts it on and rolls the window down.

“Tony!” Bruce says, leaning forward.

“No worries, I've seen people do this in movies,” Tony says, and leans out the window, pointing his gauntlet at the car behind. He fires off a few shots, hitting one of the tires, and the car skids to one side, narrowly avoiding another car – Jesus, they're going to cause a pile up – but rights itself and returns fire.

Tony yanks his head back in and rolls the window up quickly. “Hm, that didn't work.”

Bruce keeps watching out of the back window with Jane, her hand gripping his tightly. His heartbeat is in his throat, impossible to swallow down. Jane rubs her thumb along the edge of his hand, her mouth pursed. The car weaves in and out of traffic, narrowly missing other cars with every move. Cars full of innocent people.

“Maybe we should stop,” he says. They might have stop soon, if Hulk has anything to say about it. His hands are starting to swell. Jane feels it and presses her hand to his neck.

“There's no stopping now, buddy,” Tony says and overtakes a car in front. “Can't you see I'm fleeing from Neo-Nazis here!” he yells at the car as they pass it.

Jane's fingers tighten around Bruce's arm. “Look!” she shouts, as a man lands on top of the HYDRA car from... somewhere. A building, maybe? It's hard to make out, it's getting dark and Bruce's vision is blurring, but he thinks the man crouches down on the hood, without even wobbling. The car veers sharply to the right, crashing into the side of the road. Jane's hand tightens on Bruce's neck.

“What the fuck was that?” Tony shouts.

Jane looks back at him. “I think it was... Bucky.” She looks back at Bruce and smiles, her eyes wide with shock. She rubs his swelling hand and he takes a deep breath and wills it to go away. The green tinge starts to fade.

“I'm really starting to like that guy,” Tony says.

They're home minutes later and Tony throws everyone out of the tower and brings down the metal shutters on the ground floor windows. They get up to the penthouse and Pepper and Tony immediately get on their phones, pacing the floor, their voices rising every couple of minutes. In the background, the TV plays the news of the brief car chase.

“ _...reports suggest that a vehicle belonging to Tony Stark has been involved in a high speed car chase in Manhattan this evening..._ ”

Bruce hunches over on the couch and puts his head in his hands.

“Hey,” Jane says, rubbing his back. “Don't clam up, come on.”

“I'm okay,” he murmurs.

She runs her hand into his hair and sighs. “Yeah, you are.”

“Sir, SHIELD are requesting entry,” JARVIS announces.

Bruce looks up, rubbing his hands over his face, as SHIELD come in from the deck. He recognises Jemma, sort of remembers one of the dark-haired women, and doesn't remember the other or the young man with them.

“What happened?” the dark-haired woman says.

“Skye,” Jane murmurs to him.

“HYDRA fucking happened,” Tony says. “I swear to God, these clowns were supposed to be dealt with by now.”

“What did they do?” Skye asks.

“One of them posed as a waiter at the restaurant we were in. He said something... Jane?”

“'You will comply',” she says.

The four SHIELD members freeze. Bruce curls his hands into his chest and Jane puts her arm around his back. Jemma is the first to move, carefully walking over to them like he's a frightened animal. She crouches down in front of him and he resists the urge to look away.

“What's your name?” she says.

“Uh...” He looks at Jane, who shrugs. “Bruce Banner.”

“What's your mission?” she says, and her eyes seem to harden a little.

He shifts. “What?”

She purses her lips for a moment and turns back to her friends. “Fitz, can you get the torch from my bag?”

The young man brings a small flashlight over to her and she switches it on. “Hold still,” she says, and shines it in Bruce's eye.

He shies away from it for a second before making himself hold still.

“You will comply,” Jemma says. She shines the light in his other eye and scrutinises his face for a long moment before sitting back. “Those words are a brainwashing trigger phrase.”

“What?” Jane says sharply. Tony punctuates it with a 'fuck!'.

“HYDRA have a brainwashing protocol in place that is very... effective, normally. It appears it didn't work on Dr Banner but we'll need to do an EEG to be sure.”

“We've got one of those,” Tony says quickly. It sure is Candyland here. “Let's just get it over with. Right, Bruce?”

He looks at Tony, then at Jane, then down at his hands. “Yeah, uh... Yeah.”

They go down to the medical lab like a funeral procession, no one saying a word. It's the same lab that Bruce did the ultrasound on Jane in, and even now that makes his stomach twist a little. Jemma directs him to sit down and starts sticking the electrodes onto his head.

“I'm going to take some baseline readings first,” Jemma says. “I'll introduce some stimulus and after I have a reading, I'll...” She trails off and smiles.

He sits there with the stupid things stuck to his head as Jemma flashes lights in his face and pokes him with needles. It's nothing worse than mild discomfort, but he feels himself grow more and more agitated. Jane can tell, he knows, because she starts drumming her fingers against her leg with a slight smile on her face.

After a few minutes, Jemma stops and clears her throat. “Okay. When triggered, brainwashing victims exhibit an electrical impulse, similar to migraine patients. Skye, can you...?”

“Oh yeah, I'd _love_ to,” Skye says, widening her eyes. She walks up to Bruce and flashes a smile. “Tell me when.”

Jemma stares down at the monitor for a moment before nodding. “Now.”

“You will comply,” Skye says. The dark-haired woman that Bruce doesn't recognise rests her hand on the holster of her gun. There's a long pause, and Bruce glances over at Jemma, who's carefully watching the monitor.

“Again,” she says.

“You will comply,” Skye says again, slower.

Bruce looks at Jemma again. She puts her hands on her hips and hums under her breath.

“Nothing,” she says. “No reaction whatsoever.”

Tony cheers quietly and Jane comes over and lays her hand on Bruce's shoulder.

“So, it didn't work on him?”

Jemma nods. “It didn't... I'll have to analyse the data further to determine why, perhaps Hulk...”

“I'm too brain-damaged to be brainwashed,” Bruce says. Jane lets out a loud breath. 

The room goes silent for a few seconds, until Tony breaks it by laughing. Pepper smacks the back of her hand against his chest.

“What? It's funny, right? It's the epitome of irony: they wanted to control him but the way they did it means they'll never be able to.” He clears his throat into the silence. “That's funny. Right?”

Bruce snorts. “Yeah, it's funny.”

“That's what I'm saying!” Tony says, and grins. “It's _funny_.”

Everyone starts talking at once, Tony gesticulating wildly. Jane rubs her hand up Bruce's neck and kisses him on the forehead. 

“Are you really okay about this?”

He sighs and looks up at her. “Don't really have a choice. I'm unbrainwashable, it is kinda funny.”

“I don't think I'm at the laughter stage about all of this yet. Give me another few years.”

He smiles quickly, then looks back down at his hands. “They're not gonna stop, you know. Trying to... get me. Kill me.”

“They can just try,” Jane says fiercely. “You know it's not just you, we're all targets, and we would have been whether or not any of this had happened. Right?”

“Right,” he repeats. She's not wrong, but this particular flavour of targeting is all down to him. He shakes himself a little and smiles again. Unless he figures out how to build a time machine, there's not a hell of a lot he can do about that now. “Yeah.”

Fitz approaches them. He's holding himself nervously, his shoulders pulled in, his hands close to his body. Bruce recognises the look from seeing it in the mirror. “Dr Banner, Dr Foster?”

“Hi,” Bruce says.

Fitz holds out his hand. “I'm Fitz. Leo. Leo Fitz, not Fitz Leo.”

Bruce shakes his hand first, Jane second. “It's nice to meet you,” she says.

“Ah, yeah, I, it's nice to meet you too. Both of you. I'm a big fan. You two are pretty famous at, uh, SHIELD Academy.”

SHIELD what?

“Jemma mentioned that a while back,” Jane says.

“Yeah, yeah,” Fitz says. “She, uh...” He looks back at her and she smiles a little and nods. “I just wanted to say... I suffered from a traumatic brain injury a few years ago, so I, I know how you feel. A little, anyway.”

“I'm sorry,” Bruce says. “You seem like you're doing good.”

“Three and a half minutes without the...” Fitz clicks his fingers a couple of times. “Oxygen. I'm better now. You seem good as well.”

Bruce looks up at Jane again, who smiles widely at him, the corners of her eyes crinkling up. She looks exactly like she did the first time he got butterflies looking at her, when they'd had a breakthrough and she grinned at him like he'd hung the moon. “Yeah,” he says, “I guess I am...” He pauses and looks around the room. 

“Can I take these things off my head now?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END.


End file.
